A few garage sale marbles

[BigDan]

I know nothing about marbles, just thinking that for a buck a jar they might have been worth buying. Besides, they are so pretty!

[Marbleguy]

..I would'nt pay a lot of money for them. I'll define it simplistically. Look for pastel colors. Colors long before neon was invented. And look for at least minimal damage caused by weathering or subjection to mineralization. I live out here in a ghost town in the most gawdforsaken region of the Mojave Desert and the marbles I find daily are excavated at depths from 6" to 4'. My youth was spent reading Tom Swift novels and traipsing the countryside with my trusty Red Ryder BB gun long before political correctness,the pathetic BLM,social activists,etc. The only way you can be really sure of what you've got nowadays if if you've dug it up yourself.

[jeff of pa]

resized

[Marbleguy]

I'm holding a bag of them in my hand right now. I bought them at Stater Brothers Market recently. All the marbles in the pic are in the bag. The bag is labeled 'Made in China,assembled in Mexico' and 'Imperial Toy Company,Los Angeles,Ca'. Many if not most foreign-made marbles are copies or near-copies of the old Akro Agate,etc marbles made during the 1930s. This is why it feels so good digging up marbles from old dumps,etc. When you find those you KNOW they're old marbles. I suspect there's a whole lot of ripoff artists out there selling modern marbles to suckers as old marbles.

[Marbleguy]

You know those little metal/plastic tie-things that come wrapped around packages of junk stuff you buy at Walmart or the $1 dollar stores? Well,somebody has to sit there on a chair at an assembly line all day and tie those things. It's not a job to write home to mom & dad about. So in Mexico there are peons instructed to put five of these,eight of those and forty others into a plastic bag and if you do a good job you'll get enough pesos to buy rice and beans for tonight. I held down a job like that back when I was a starving hippie. Half a century later I'm a rich republican but I sure do remember the old days.

[BigDan]

I'm glad I stopped buying at two jars. Should have just enough to teach the grandkids how to play marbles, and I don't have to worry about misusing any valuable old ones.

[duffytrash]

those first few pics except the large speckled ones are jabo made in marietta oh...dont let the kids play with all of em...they will become collectible in the next few years....theyre called classics....the cateyes are asian...

[Marbleguy]

..to before you buy what's offered as 'antique marbles' to buy modern marbles. This'll cost you between ten and twenty bucks. Money well-spent. Check out toy stores,local supermarkets,etc. I spent over $50 on marble-collecting books only to find out I got shafted. The vast majority of antique marbles you'll find either thru purchase or digging for them will be pretty but NOT worth $400 each. What's really needed is an illustrated,comprehensive guide to the so-called 'common' antique marbles. Buy modern-made marbles so you've got something to compare with antique marbles. That will put you ahead of today's collectibles game.

[duffytrash]

this book is the best out there today...it does cover all the wva companies...if you study the history it will inform you about the traits and you will understand the complexes of different marbles...the earlier books were put together people tryin to make a killin over marbles and left many with the same disdane you show...true the high dollar marbles are few and far between but theres tons of middle range marbles and just knowin who made em is great fun... theres a book thats similar to this one but the pics are scrwed up so dont bother with that one..its the popular american marbles...its not recommended..but american machine made marbles is highly recommended...

http://www.dealoz.com/prod.pl?cat=bo...data_id=352620

[Marbleguy]

Bought it using amazon.com's 'one click' site. Here's something good for a laugh. I had been digging up antique marbles in my little town's old dump. Bought the book 'Collecting Early Machine-made Marbles'. Holy mackeral the book's pics of marbles give their values at $500 to $2,000 each. I donated the book to our local museum. Townsfolk saw the book. There was a gold rush of locals zooming to the dump with visions of sudden wealth followed with a big letdown when they discovered the marbles they found were selling on Ebay for a couple bucks each. This after they had dug for hours to find one marble.