Anyone know about marbles??
- Thread starter jtw1313
- Start date
cheese
Silver Member
Hello jtw1313!
Those are older marbles. The ones in the bowl are the better group, although I don't think I see any high value ones. The clay ones are old but very common. I'd say most of them are from the 1930s to 1960s.
Those are older marbles. The ones in the bowl are the better group, although I don't think I see any high value ones. The clay ones are old but very common. I'd say most of them are from the 1930s to 1960s.
Later I will line them all up and take photos
Geobound
Hero Member
The ones on the right look to be Cats Eyes marbles, and are collectables by some.
Although I think the market is flooded with them, it never hurts to check them out.
The top left "could" be a Codd Neck Bottle marble, but I can't quite tell from the picture.
Have a look at this link, and then do a search for Codd marbles and compare images.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codd-neck_bottle
Cool finds though.
Although I think the market is flooded with them, it never hurts to check them out.
The top left "could" be a Codd Neck Bottle marble, but I can't quite tell from the picture.
Have a look at this link, and then do a search for Codd marbles and compare images.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codd-neck_bottle
Cool finds though.
cheese
Silver Member
The separate ones in tissue look like some West Virginia swirls and a cateye or two. Maybe they belonged to someone special and they were saved separately for that reason. The others are mostly Vitro conquerors, Vitro tiger eyes, and a few West Virginia swirls made by Alley and maybe Ravenswood.
Old Pueblo
Bronze Member
I have no idea, but someone told me the solid colored glass ones are older than a lot of the clear ones you can see through, like the cats eyes. And it looks to me like a lot of the solid ones in your photo here are of an irregular size, like clay marbles, and not all the same like later marbles would be. I think the solid ones could be from that time period in between the time when clay marbles were the norm, and the time when modern glass marbles became the norm (Mid 20th century). In that case, Id say late 1800s to the early 1900s, but who knows right. According to that wikipedia thing I posted the other day, clay marbles were not mass produced until the 1890s, but I know they were in use as far back as the Civil War, since they are often found in civil war campsites.
Old Pueblo
Bronze Member
Another thing, I dont know much about marbles, but I do know a little about old glass. Bubbles in the glass are a good sign of old age.
cheese
Silver Member
Solid and clear marbles have both been made at the same time for over a century. Both are still made today. Out-of-round marbles or defects on marbles doesn't indicate age either. The majority of the marbles shown are post 1930. The painted clays are maybe 10-30 years prior to that. Yes, there were clay marbles for hundreds of years, but not those pictured. They were making these on machines that produced 1000 per hour in the first half of the 20th century in Ohio. Similar ones were coming by ship from Germany along in the same time frame. Bubbles in glass might be an indicator of age, but not with marbles. The old marbles of the 1800s had far fewer bubbles than the machine mades from the first half of the 1900s.
cheese
Silver Member
Marks on those marbles would be damage hit-marks or cold rolls from the factory, no pontils. All the glass marbles shown are machine made and those don't have pontils. Really, they aren't "pontils" in the true sense of the word, but for lack of a better word, that's what we call them. It's not where it was attached to a punty rod like a true pontil, but it's a mark where the marble was cut from the cane of glass that was used to make it.
Old Pueblo
Bronze Member
Thank you, its good to finally hear from someone who knows what they are talking about. All of the marbles I played with as a kid were perfectly round, and they would have been machine made. If youre finding imperfectly round glass marbles on an old site, that has to be an indication of old age, since modern marbles always seem to be perfect, unless they are made in the old fashioned way or something.
Old Pueblo
Bronze Member
Do you know when they stopped mass producing clay marbles in Ohio?
Old Pueblo
Bronze Member
And in my first comment I wasnt referring to defects on marbles, but the actual size. Modern machine made marbles, except for the shooters of course, all seem to be the same standard size. But I find solid colored marbles at old sites that are usually a bit smaller than the regular modern marbles still sold today at the 99cent store. Like clay marbles, they are found in different sizes, but always smaller than the regular ones we use today, and they are always solid in color. Clay marbles, as you know, were not all of one exact standard size but can vary in size. That said, I think the small solid ones I find are definitely older than than the swirly, colorful modern looking mables I find.
cheese
Silver Member
The smaller solid colored ones are chinese checker marbles. They are not older than the others, they are the same age. I have several in the original packaging still, sold as game marble replacements. Oddly shaped marbles and out of round marbles are always part of normal production. In fact, the earlier marbles were the best and as time went by and manufacturers competed with one another and tried to save money, they made marbles faster and cheaper and used lower quality glass and let more imperfect marbles pass by quality control because they were making marbles by the literal train car load. There is no rule when it comes to marbles about bubbles or out of round or size... they made them in variations of each all through the years. The only way to know is to study and learn to ID each and every marble and then you can attribute it to a maker, a factory, and an era.
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