Types of marbles Types of Marbles Wholesale and Bulk Marbles Types of Marbles Marbles come in an astonishing variety and are commonly classified according to their size, appearance, and materials they are made from. Glass marbles are probably the most popular today, but they can also be made from clay, crockery, china, real marble, stone ivory, agate, steel and other materials. Generally, marbles are around 1/2-inch across, but they can range from less than 1/4-inch to more than 3 inches. Marble players often use terms like jumbo, pee wee, queenie, bumbo, bumboozer, and boulders to describe marble sizes. Sometimes the names given to marbles describe the materials from which they are made and sometimes they describe their appearance. Here are some of the major classifications. Alley or Real describes a marble that is made from real marble or alabaster. Alley stands for alabaster. These usually have wavy patterns with lots of color. Common names for these marbles include onyx, bumblebee, corkscrew, and swirl. Other examples include: Oxbloodï¿½these have streaks that resemble blood.

Onionskinï¿½which contain a pattern that looks like an onion. Lutzï¿½the name comes from a skating term, describing a pattern that resembles this marble's streak. Toothpasteï¿½distinct waves of black, orange, white, blue and red. Cats Eyeï¿½these are created by injecting colored cores into the marble, which look like eyes in the center of the marble. Croton Alley or Jasper should not be confused with the alley marbles listed above. Instead, they are made of either glazed or unglazed china that is marbled with blue. These are usually larger than the other alley marbles. Commie or common marbles are usually brightly painted but are made of clay and don't often retain their finish over time. They generally don't have much value. A Steely is just what it sounds like, made of steel. Sulphide marbles are clear and have objects embedded inside of them. China and Plaster marbles are both made from china. China marbles are those that have been glazed, while plasters are those that have not been. Both of them have lines of various colors that sometimes cross each other, forming plaid designs.

They also form circles called bull's eyes. Like any other form of china, they are created in wooden molds, then baked, and painted. An Aggie is made from agate, or sometimes carnelian and are usually quite beautiful. They vary in color from gray to blood red and sometimes have stripes or mottlings of different colors. When they are created, the rock is broken down into smaller pieces and then a hammer is used to form them into crude balls. They are then worn down on a grindstone until they are perfect spheres. They are then polished polished by hand. Aggies are perfect when you are making a difficult shot because of their balanced weight and symmetry. Crystal or Clearie marbles are made of clear colored glass, and are often known as rubies, bloods, glimmers, or opals. They too are often beautiful but don't stand up to wear and tear. After they have been used, their finish becomes full of nicks and has a dull sheen. Sometimes these marbles are called agates, so the genuine agate is often referred to as "real" to distinguish it from the glass ones.

The terms galaxy, cloudy, swirly, mica, and milky are also familiar to many marble players. Take a look at the categories on the right and peruse the selection of marbles available for purchase on eBay. Be careful, though, you might get hooked on collecting these beautiful toys or showpieces! Oh Marbles! There are Many Kinds of Marbles These marble names refer to categories of marbles. Agates or Aggies - By the middle of the nineteenth century, marbles made of agate had become so popular that the word aggie, a nickname for agate, came to be used for all stone marbles. Many were quarried and ground in Germany then exported to America and other countries. Aggies were often colored with black, gray, green, blue and yellow mineral dyes. Alleys or Allies - Get their name from Alabaster, which is a soft stone related to marble. Alleys have come to mean very good marbles, or marbles in general. Benningtons - Got their name from Bennington Pottery in Vermont, which made some spotted pottery that resmebled these marbles. Benningtons are blue or brown glazed marbles that aren't completely round.

A bennington has a circular unglazed spot that results from its touching another marble while still wet with glaze. Bumboozer - a large marble or agate or glass. Cat's Eyes - Clear marbles with different-colored blades or vanes inside. It is unusual to have black vanes inside this type of marble. Chinas - Marbles made of china or porcelain clay. There are both glazed and unglazed chinas. Clearies - Clear glass marbles made of a transparent single color throughout. Clouds - End of day marbles with colored flecks of glass that aren't stretched, which look like clouds floating over hte core. Comics or Comic Strips - Marbles with comic book characters on the surface. Only made for a brief time period, so they are rare. Commoneys or Commies - This name refers marbles that are very common. Originally, clay marbles were the least expensive marbles. Beginning around 1840, a factory in Ohio was producing clay marbles at a rate of 100,000 per day. Glazed or unglazed, they were colored in tans, reds, and browns of the clays they were made.

The nickname commies originated then with a shortened form or “commoneys” because they were common, every day marbles children used for play. Corkscrews - marbles with 2 or more colors in spriral designs. in corkscrews, the spirals rotate around the marble from one pole to the other, but they do not meet. Glassies or Puries - Clear, brightly colored glass marbles. Immies - Glass marbles streaked with color so they look as if they were made of real aggate. Immie is short for immitation. Milkies - Opaque, milky white marbles. Onion Skins - End of day marbles in which colored flecks of glass are stretched so that the core has may swirls, resembling an onion. Peewees - Small marbles, usually less than 1/2 inch wide. Steelies - Ball bearings used as marbles. Many ball bearings are used for industrial purposes. Sulfides - Clear marbles which have clay figures inside. Swirls - Could be handmade or machine made. The handmade ones have bands or strands running from end to end. Rare Marbles Antique commies are still fairly common.

They are still inexpensive and within reach of the average marble collector. Crockery Marbles - Most crockery or stoneware marbles were brown with a blue glaze. They are called Benningtons because their glaze resembles that of the brown and blue glazed Bennington Ware pottery produced in Bennington Vermont during the nineteenth century. Antique Cane-Cut glass marbles - Though some speculate that glass spheres produced near ancient Rome were used as marbles, the earliest glass toy marbles were made in Germany in the middle of the nineteenth century. In 1846, a glassworker in the town of Lausche invented the marbelschere, or marble scissors, a tool that rounded a marble in one step. Latticinio Core – takes its name from the Italian word for “net” and refers to the open network of narrow strands of milky, white glass that appears in the center. Divided Core and Ribbon Core – these two closely related swirls make up about 20 percent of antique swirls. Both have ribbons of color near the center which spiral from end to end.

Solid Core Marbles Lutz – golden veins of jewel like glass sparkle vividly in these hand made swirls. Aventurine, a yellow glass containing small copper crystals, give Lutz marbles their phosphorescent brilliance. Lutzes are the crown jewels of marble collecting and are prized for their beauty and rarity. Colored Glass Coreless Swirls – it was not possible to use colored glass ribbons with a colored glass marble since their interior colors wouldn't be seen, or if they were visible their colors would be muddy or unclear. As a result, colored glass marbles were coreless and were decorated with either bands or swirls of white near the surface, or color applied to the surface. Clam broths – Also known as clams, these are amongst most popular of collectible marbles. They take their name from the chowder white opaque glass from with they are made. They characteristically have many thin outer swirl lines of contrasting color running from pontil to pontil. Gooseberries – gooseberries are an example of a colored glass marble. They have numerous thin white threats distributed evenly around the surface of the marble.

Opaque Glass Swirls – less translucent than colored glass swirls, opaque glass swirls are decorated with lines, bands and swirls on their surfaces. Indian Swirls – Also known as indians, these opaque are made of black glass with outer bands of colored glass. They were named by authors of a marble book who mistakenly claimed that the marbles came from India. Rare Marbles, continued Peppermint Swirls – These popular red, white and blue swirls were made around 1876 to commemorate the American Centennial. Although designs vary, each marble was fashioned from a clear core of glass surrounded by a thin layer of white glass decorated with blue bands and red stripes. The most valued peppermints are sometimes called flags. Onionskins – Although this cane-cut swirl usually has at its center a clear glass core, it appears solidly colored because the clear core is covered by a thin layer of opaque color and then covered again by a thin layer of clear glass. Extremely popular and highly prized, onionskins take their name from the layering of glass, like layers of an onion. In contrast to end of day marbles, onion skins have two pontils.

The base color, usually white or yellow, was applied by rolling clear glass marble in powdered glass. Accent colors were added by rolling the heated piece over fragments of crashed glass, creating the speckled effect. There are various types of onionskins: single color, speckled, and segmented. Sometimes mica was added to the glass, thus increasing its value. Onionskins were known to exist from the beginning of the cane-cut marble industry. An early example, dated between 1850 and 1860 was unearthed in the excavation of an old privy in New Orleans. Micas – Mica was added to many kinds of marbles. However, the marbles called micas are those clear or colored glass marbles with no designs in which mica flecks are suspended. The flecks of mica in the marbles add sparkle and glitter when placed in bright light. Micas are made of clear, blue, green, amber and red glass. The rare red micas are much sought after by collectors. End of Day - End of day marbles were fashioned from the glass crumbs left over at the end of a workday. Traditionally, they were not sold but were given as special treats to neighborhood children.

No two end of day marbles are alike. To make an end-of-day marble, the worker gathered a small amount of glass at the end of a rod and rolled it over a powdered colored glass that served as a base color. This was heated in the furnace and then rolled again over powdered glass this time the days leftover scraps of colored glass, which adhered to the hot surface of the base color. Clouds – Like end of day marbles, these marbles were individually made. They are clear glass spheres with bits of colored glass suspended within. The interior colors, blue, red, yellow, white, or green – are in the shape of a hot air balloon and seem to float like a cloud in the transparent marble. In come clouds, bits of colored glass were set within other colored pieces and required special skill to produce. Clouds are rare and valued by collectors. Sulphides – Sulphides are clear glass spheres with white or silvery figures suspended in their centers – animals, birds, human figures, numbers or other figures. They were produced in Germany from the mid-nineteenth century until the end of World War 1 and they may have also been made in England and the United States.

Antique Glass Marbles - Collector Information | Collectors Weekly Overview eBay Auctions Show & Tell Articles Antique glass marbles are highly collectible, from handmade examples by German glassmakers of the 1800s to marbles made by machine in the early 1900s by U.S. companies like Christensen, Peltier Glass, Akro Agate, and Vitro Agate. Marbles have been made from a variety of materials throughout the ages, such as stone (limestone, agate, and semiprecious stones), clay (which were so common at the time that they were known as “commies”), and china, although glass marbles are the most popular to collect. Handmade marbles are especially sought by collectors, especially examples from the mid-1800s through the early 1900s, which can be identified by a pontil mark, formed when the marble was removed from the pontil rod during production. Machine-made marbles came about during World War I when the U.S. stopped importing handmade marbles. Many collectors enjoy them because they remember playing with them as children.

German swirls, the most common handmade glass marbles, were first produced in Thuringen, Germany. There are five types of German swirl marbles. The most common, latticino core marbles, were created from the 1840s (the beginning of glass marble production) until the mid-1920s. Most cores are white or yellow. Other German swirls have a solid core (either cylindrical or ridged), a divided core (with multiple strands in the center, most commonly 3 or 4), a ribbon core (with either a single or double ribbon), or a complex core, in which two or more variations are used within the same marble. Other types of colored glass marbles include maypole marbles (threads swirled on or near the surface of the marble), mists (color created by overlaying glass on or near the surfa...ce of the marble), micas (colored glass with silver flakes), solid-colored swirls (such as onionskin and peppermint marbles), and opaque glass. Lutz marbles are also sought-after by collectors for their beautiful swirls of goldstone decoration.

Goldstone, glass made with copper crystals, was first discovered in Venice in the 1600s, but marbles using the material weren’t produced until the early 1900s, just before World War I. Another popular style is the sulphide marble, which is clear with a small figure in the center. These were produced in the same location and around the same time as German swirls. Best of the Web (“Hall of Fame”) Loetz.com This fabulous site is a guide to Bohemian art glass makers from 1885 to 1920.

Loetz was the premier Bohemian glass … [ read review or visit site ] Museum of Talking Boards Prepare to enter the strange world of Ouija, the Wonderful Talking Board game, which captured imaginations en masse… [ read review or visit site ] Elliot Avedon Games Museum This in-depth University of Waterloo virtual exhibit showcases vintage games in a variety of categories, from class… [ read review or visit site ] Cloud Glass Reference Site Chris and Val Stewart’s impressive attempt to create a complete catalogue of all known cloud glass, a decorative … [ read review or visit site ] Antique Glass Salt and Sugar Shaker Club The heart of this website, home of the Antique Glass Salt and Sugar Shaker Club, is the Identification Project, whe… [ read review or visit site ] Electronic Plastic From Tomy to Coleco to Mattel and Nintendo, check out this collection of over 660 handheld and tabletop videogames … [ read review or visit site ] Pong Story David Winter's tribute to early video games, and to Ralph H. Baer, 'inventor of the video game.' Offers a detailed … [ read review or visit site ] Clubs & Associations Marbles by Vitro Agate Company and Jabo Inc.

The Vitro Agate Company began operations in 1932 in Parkersburg, West Virginia. It was acquired in 1969 by The Gladding Corporation, which changed the name to Gladding-Vitro Agate Company. In 1982, Gladding-Vitro was purchased by Paris Manufacturing Company, which changed the name back to Vitro Agate. In 1987, it was purchased by Viking Rope Company, which retained the name, but moved the company to Anacortes, Washington. The company ceased operations in 1992 and the machinery and name were purchased by JABO, Inc. It then became Vitro Agate Division of JABO Inc.﻿ Early Vitro Agate marbles are the brushed variety. This is the type that has a thin layer of colored glass brushed on a base color. A Victory is a transparent clear base with an opaque color patch brushed on about a quarter of the surface. The patch is purple, green, yellow, blue or red. The Conqueror is more common than the Victory. It is a transparent clear base with the same type of patch as the Victory. However, the remainder of the marble is brushed with opaque white.

These marbles are usually found in 5/8”, but examples up to 15/16” are known to exist. There are two other marbles, similar to a Conqueror. One looks just like a Conqueror, but most of the interior of the marble is filled with translucent white filaments (occasionally the marble is opalescent). These are often referred to as “Phantom Conquerors”. They are much more common than the Conqueror and are not very collectible at this time. Victories and Conquerors date from the 1940s to the early 1950s.﻿ A Vitro Helmet is a three-color patch. The base glass is a transparent color. The patch is an opaque color covering about half the marble. Usually it is white. There is usually a colored stripe brushed on the middle of the patch. When viewed from the proper angle, the marble looks like a striped football helmet sitting on top of a head, hence the name. It does not appear that Vitro actually marketed this marble under the name Helmet Patch.

The helmet patch dates to the 1930s and 1940s.﻿ Another type of Vitro Agate that has become collectible were marketed as Blackies and Whities. These date from the 1950s and early 1960s. Blackies are opaque white with a black band around the equator. Whities are opaque white with a translucent color band around the equator. A slightly more recent Vitro-Agate are the All-Reds. All-Reds come in two varieties. The older variety, dating from the 1950s into the 1960s, is an opaque white base with a red patch on one pole and a different color on the other. There is a black line encircling the red patch. The other type of All-Red, which is more recent, has a red patch on one pole and a color patch on the other. There is no black line on this one. Vitro produced a number of two seam multicolor patch marbles. Many of these have clear and wispy white as one of the colors.

When viewed ninety degrees around the marble from the seam, many have a stylized “V” pattern to them. These are usually found in the 7/8” size ﻿and are called V-patches by collectors. Vitro Agate also produced another type of brushed opaque marble called the “Parrot” that is collectible. This is a white base marble that has four patches of color on it. The patches can be blue, purple, black, yellow, and green (aventurine or not). "Parakeets" are 5/8” to 11/16” varieties of Parrots. A similar marble is the “Sweet Pea. This is light green with a yellow, black, and red patch on it.﻿ Vitro Agate made a variety of other transparent and opaque marbles, as well as cat’s-eyes. Almost all are not collectible today. However, there are several that collectors are beginning to look for. The Vitro Agate Tiger Eye is a transparent clear base marble with four different colored patches brushed on the surface.﻿ Vitro produced a small run of marbles called “Eight-Finger Ribbon”.

These are a transparent color base with eight ribbons of opaque white, four on one side, four on the other. The base is bright yellow, green, red, or clear. ﻿ Vitro Agate also made some collectible cat’s-eyes that are beginning to be collected. Vitro Agate cat’s-eyes are either a four or five wavy vane type. Some have two or more colors on each vane; these are referred to as hybrids. Gladding-Vitro cat’s-eyes are six or eight strand cage style, usually in aqua glass. While in Anacortes, Vitro produced swirls called Classics. These were the last marbles produced by Vitro Agate Company.﻿ An online reference guide for marble collectors You can now order marble reference books from the Marble Shop on this site. Feb 4 - Buckeye Marble Club Winter Show, Canton OH Mar 3&4 - Marble Crazy, Bonner Springs KS Mar 5 - Kansas City Marble Club Show, Overland Park KS See the Marble Show page for more info. ﻿ Online Marble Identification Guide This is an online version of Marbles: Identification and Price Guide.

Don't forget, this site will also display on mobile devices (smartphones, iPads, etc.) in a native form. So, you can take the Guide wherever you go!﻿ Handmade Marbles The earliest manufactured marbles were made by hand. Visit this section for a brief history of handmade marble manufacture and to see an image library to help you identify various types of handmade marbles. Non-Glass Marbles Marbles have been made from non-glass materials such as wood, clay and stone, for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. There are a number of types of non-glass marbles that collectors seek out. This section discusses these types, and offers an image identification library. Machine Made Marbles The mechanized production of glass marbles was developed in the United States in the first quarter of the 20th Century. The Golden Age of machine made marbles is dominated by marbles from such companies as M.F. Christensen & Son, Christensen Agate, Akro Agate and Peltier Glass.

This section gives a short history of many marble companies, and offers an image idenficiation library.﻿ Playing for keeps: Collecting vintage marbles - Antique Trader Antique Trader Enter your e-mail address to receive a free download of The Business of Antiques, an insightful guide to achieving success in the marketplace. You'll also be signed up to receive e-newsletters from Antique Trader and partners. * By: Carrie P. Jones | May 22, 2008 Those growing up in the mid-1900s probably recall springs when marble bags came out of hibernation. “Knuckling down” wasn’t getting busy with homework, but getting your knuckles on the ground, ready to shoot. Since “mib” is Latin for marble, a youngster playing marbles was a “mibster.” By the mid-1960s, the game had lost much of its appeal, likely due to the television. But if the turnout at marble shows is any indication, many adults continue to be mibsters today. Only the game they play has changed.

In 1964, 5-year-old Brian Estepp found a box of his aunt’s marbles during a game of hide-and-seek. She hadn’t lost her marbles, she was just storing them as reminders of being her high school’s champion marble shooter. Estepp went home that day with approximately 3,000 marbles. That gift started his marble fascination. After college, he began researching and trading up. Estepp recommends new collectors do the same. Buy what excites you and is affordable. When something comes along that’s higher end, sell or trade in order to purchase it. As Estepp’s collection grew, he began specializing. For him, how many marbles you own isn’t as important as what kind you own. Online purchasing holds no interest for this enthusiast … and never will. Most of the marbles he buys are from collections being sold off. Word about serious collectors spreads quickly, so leaving a business card with respected dealers/collectors is a good idea. Some of his more than 1,000 marbles and boxed sets are photographed in Paul Baumann’s Collecting Antique Marbles and Everett Grist’s Big Book of Marbles.

Marble sizes range from 1/2 inch to 3 inches, with 5/8 inch being standard. Within the footprints of supply and demand, Estepp says, “The larger the marbles, the higher their prices. The more colors within a marble, the more it will bring. Age doesn’t always increase value, it depends upon what kind of marble it is.” In her book Aggies, Immies, Shooters, and Swirls, the Magical World of Marbles, Marilyn Barrett wrote, “Hold a marble in your hand and you hold a piece of history … The allure of marbles is timeless and universal, spanning culture, generation, language and class.” The earliest marbles were clay balls. Barrett wrote of those discovered in Egyptian pyramid tombs and of five found with a child’s cremated remains in a 200-300 AD Indian mound. The latter are now in the Ohio Historical Society’s collection. It was the 17th-century German invention of water-powered mills that ushered in marbles made of stones. Alabaster, marble and semi-precious stones such as carnelian, tiger’s-eye, agate and bloodstones were ground into marbles.

Marbles made of agate became so popular during the last half of the 1800s that in America, all those made of stone became known as aggies; in Germany, they were called clickers. Even those made of semi-precious stones are aggies. It was during this time that America began competing with Germany in marble production. Since there’s no way to determine if aggies are antique or machine-made, all tend to be valued in the same ballpark. Clay marbles are also called commies, because they were so common. Barrett wrote of one Ohio factory producing commies at the rate of 100,000 per day by 1840. Antique clays/commies continue to be both common and affordable. German-made and American ones cannot be told apart. Grist wrote, “They were like two pennies being carried in separate pockets. Once you took them out and laid them side by side, you couldn’t distinguish one from the other.” Stoneware marbles are nicknamed Benningtons because most are brown spheres wearing the same blue glaze as Vermont’s 19th-century Bennington pottery and were produced by a similar method … only in Germany, not Vermont.

To be considered Benningtons, these marbles must have “eyes” where the wet marbles touched each other during firing. Grist lists a 5/8-inch Bennington for $2, and a 1 3/4-inch for $50. In the early 1800s, some German factories, specializing in china and porcelain, began making china marbles. When these kiln-fired marbles cooled, they were hand-painted, usually with flowers, leaves, stars and geometric designs, then re-fired. By the mid-1800s, chinas were being made in America. According to Grist, in 1886, clay marbles sold at 90 cents per 1,000 while porcelains went for 20 cents for 100. They remain pricey today, especially rare flowers. Although glass marbles were being made earlier in the 19th century, it wasn’t until marble scissors were invented in 1846 that it was possible to produce them in large quantities. These scissors cut glass rods into marble-sized pieces.

The slightly hardened segments rotated in a wooden barrel to become rounded before heading into an annealing oven for cooling, 10-20 marbles at a time. Pontils were formed where the glass was cut, two per marble. Those marks show the spheres were handmade. Handmade swirls or spirals created by twisting multi-colored rods, required exceptional glass-making skill. The majority of older marbles are swirls and are highly valued by collectors. Originally selling for pennies, some 5/8-inch ones in Grist’s book are valued near $100, yet many larger ones are into the thousands. Onionskins are marbles made when a clear glass core was covered with a thin layer of opaque color, then a thin layer of clear… repeated layering of glass like an onion’s layering. Accent speckles were created by rolling the heated piece over crushed glass. Onionskins are prized by many collectors, including Estepp. One of his 1 3/4-inch tri-colored onionskins pictured in Grist’s book is valued at $1,200.

Mica flakes adds value, as shown with Estepp’s 1 3/4-inch having lots of mica but few swirls, $2,500. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, glassmakers sometimes used leftover glass at the end of the day to make individual marbles that were taken home. They were layered like onionskins, but had only one pontil mark, where the solitary marble was cut off its gathering rod. No two end-of-the-days were alike. Among examples in Grist’s book is a 1 3/4-inch from Estepp’s collection, valued at $2,750, and a 1 7/8-inch with mica, $4,000. Sulphides have white to silvery figures of birds, animals, human figures or numbers suspended in the center of clear, glass spheres. Figures are molded or carved from sulphide salts; their silvery appearance due to trapped air between the figure and glass. This process took two glassmakers, one to gather the glass and one to insert the molded figure. Before buying sulphides, do your homework.

Grist’s book is an excellent resource as it lists all sulphide figures known to date. James Leighton’s 1896 invention of a mold on a pair of tongs was the first step towards machine-made marbles. These imitation stone slags of glass are called transitions, coming between handmade and machine made. They had one pontil, most of which was ground or melted down. Within a few years, marbles were being made entirely by machine with Martin Frederick Christensen’s invention for creating balls from glass. These machine-made marbles that many of us associate with childhood were mostly produced by M.F. Christensen and Son; Akro Agate Co.; Peltier Glass Co.y; Christensen Agate Co.; Ravenswood Novelty Co.; and Marble King. Grist wrote that machine-made marbles fall into two categories – early (1900-1925) and automatic man-made (1925-present). Marble production reached its peak in the late 1920s-1930s. Competition between American companies meant cheap marbles … and lots of them.

According to Barrett, “Ten thousand marbles could be made in a 10-hour day.” This period is referred to as the Golden Age of Marbles. Berry Pink, the “Marble King,” promoted the game (and his marble company) during the Great Depression by sponsoring tournaments and giving away thousands of marbles. Most of these marbles aren’t easily distinguished from one another. According to Barrett, “Only 2 1/2 percent of all machine-made marbles are sought after by serious collectors.” American dominance in marble production was brought to a halt in the 1950s by cat’s-eye marbles from Japan. Children considered them must-haves, driving many American companies out of business. While marble playing is generally thought of as a boy’s game, Estepp’s aunt would have assured you differently. Some companies marketed to girls with special colors such as Oriental green and Persian turquoise. Grist wrote of a highly sought after lavender opaque, which was only produced for two days in 1917. Estepp belongs to the Buckeye Marble Collectors Club and says 30-40 percent of their 600 members are women.

Peppermints, ribbons, gooseberries, toothpastes, turtles, glimmers, bloods, bird’s eggs, clouds, lemonades, comics, bumblebees, jennys, cub scouts, fluorescents, micas, corkscrews … a mere start in listing the numerous marble nicknames. Until they catch on to the special language of marble enthusiasts, beginning collectors might relate to a Charles Schulz cartoon where Charlie Brown’s playmate, when asked what kind of marbles he had, replied, “Round ones. Today landscapers and builders often discover these colorful round remnants from days when children knuckled down around those hastily drawn circles of their youth. Brian Estepp’s advice for beginners: “Research and read,” suggests marble collector Brian Estepp. “But the best thing to do is go where you can see marbles and ask questions of those who are outstanding in the field of marble collecting.” One of the best places to begin would be your regional marble club. These clubs promote the hobby of marble collecting. Annual marble shows are held where you can meet reputable dealers, plus have an opportunity to see outstanding exhibitions.

Estepp’s club is the Buckeye Marble Collector’s Club, Their next show is in Worthington, Ohio, July 31-Aug. 2, 2008. Participants are urged to come earlier in the week if possible. For information, call 614-975-1203. Estepp reports there will be about 40 reputable dealers and exhibitors attending. Visit the American Toy Museum in Akron, Ohio. The museum’s mission is to “preserve, display, interpret and disseminate the history of the American toy industry as it developed in Akron, Ohio.” For those of you unable to go to the museum, its Web site, contains a wealth of information. Sulphides Animal figures are the most common, with domestic animals more common than wild ones. Rarest figures are inanimate objects like trains. Next rarest are religious figures and people. Marbles containing more than one figure bring more than those with just one. The rarest sulphides are the colored marbles containing more than one figure. Examples of sulphides from Everett Grist’s Big Book of Marbles: All marbles listed below are 1 3/4-inch in size.

Child and dog: $1,000 Antique Marble | Toys & Dolls Price Guide | Antiques & Collectibles Price Guide Marble Marble Marble collectors pay the highest prices for glass and sulphide marbles. The game of marbles has been popular since the days of the ancient Romans. American children were able to buy ready-made marbles by the mid-eighteenth century. Dutch glazed clay marbles were least expensive. Glazed pottery marbles, attributed to the Bennington potteries in Vermont, were of a better quality. Marbles made of pink marble were also available by the 1830s. Glass marbles seem to have been made later. By 1880, Samuel C. Dyke of South Akron, Ohio, was making clay marbles and The National Onyx Marble Company was making marbles of onyx. The Navarre Glass Marble Company of Navarre, Ohio, and M. B. Mishler of Ravenna, Ohio, made glass marbles. Ohio remained the center of the marble industry, and the Akron-made Akro Agate brand became nationally known.

Interesting types of marbles include the Venetian swirl, with ribbons of colored glass inside clear glass, and End of Day, with flecks of colored glass in them. Other pieces made by Akro Agate are listed in the Akro Agate category. Sulphides are glass marbles with frosted white figures in the center.

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Most were made in Germany from the late 1840s until around about 1915, and most are the swirl variety. For this reason they are sometimes called German swirls but most collectors refer to them as 'handmades'. Vintage handmade marbles sizes usually range from about 1/2" to 2" in diameter. Bigger ones in better condition hold more value to collectors, but rarity of style and "eye appeal" are major factors in value. It goes without saying that no toy marble collection is complete without at least one handmade. Don't despair if you cannot find or afford a mint condition one. These antique marbles come in many sizes and all conditions, so you are sure to find a worthy one that is affordable. Popular types include onionskins, clambroths, sulphides, indians, lutz, and mica.

Question: Aggie, China, Onionskin and Cats Eyes are all types of which toy?
Answer: Marbles