Until the electronic generations, every child, boy or girl, had a few marbles. Many children won a lot of marbles playing in the neighborhood, in the dirt (a child’s favorite) and winning marbles from other children. You have to go home when you lost all your marbles, probably the generation of that particular phrase. For the winners, an ever heavier bag of marbles. Where did they come from? And where have they gone?

There are two areas of marble manufacturers in the US today: Marble King in Paden City, West Virginia, and in the Akron, Ohio area. In addition, marbles are imported from Mexico and elsewhere. Hundreds of thousands of them, if not more. And where have the millions of marbles in the US gone? That is the question.

Opaque marbles

Marbles are relatively small and get lost in considerable numbers just by carrying them from game to game in sacks. It seems like every new house I move into provides a few marbles in the yard. Many marbles get thrown out, as parts of games that no one wants, or as toys outgrown. No doubt the Land of Lost Socks has a considerable population of marbles of every make and model.

Cat's eye marbles.

So, if you never had a affinity for marbles when you were young, why would you want to collect marbles?

Puries

Even the manufactured ones are beautiful. Clear marbles, called puries, have beautiful colors. The cat’s eyes, with a twist of one or more colors in the center of a clear marble, are beautiful. Aggies, made to look like agate marbles, have interesting patterns of mainly white with other colors in random patterns. Bumblebees are opaque glass with two colors alternating. Steelies are ball bearings of a good size to be a marble.

Marbles of several sizes.

Most marbles are about 10 to 15 mm in diameter. Larger marbles are used as shooters, and these can be as large as a human can rest in the crook of the curled index finger with the thumb as the floor of the cup. Older marbles, probably played with, may have nicks and scratches, but if they are rare or extremely old, this may not matter to a serious collector.

Both today and in times past, marbles are also made from clay, both regular pottery clay and porcelain. Marbles are also made from stones like agate, quartz, pyrite, and other hard rocks. Quite often these are made for adult versions of games that use round markers.

Tiger eye marble

Finally, with the rise of glass artists in the late 20th century, hand-made artist marbles are available. These are exceptionally beautiful, large, and intended for display only. Some artists have become nationally recognized for their marbles, and they specialized in this form of glass. While the marbles are available at glass marble conventions, many artists sell through eBay and etsy. The photographs are usually quite good, and individual marbles sell for about $30. Those that are especially large, beautiful or made by a well-known glass artist will cost much more; in fact whatever the market will bear. Considering that each is unique, a miniature work of art, with hours of practice behind it, this is not expensive. But, you do not want anyone playing with these marbles, as any nicks, chips or scratches will cause a drop in value. These are look-but-do-not-touch marbles.

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The images on this post are from Stock Xchnge. (http://www.sxc.hu/)The images on this post are from Stock Xchnge.

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