By Bob Block
Photos courtesy of the author

A Transitional, Leighton Oxblood, American, c. 1880-1910 which goes for $1,200 to $2,000.

Marble collecting is one of the fastest growing hobbies today. The children's playthings of yesteryear have become highly sought after collectibles. Adults, who decades ago would "play for keeps" in schoolyards, playgrounds and sidewalks, now eagerly seek out those same marbles at antique shows, flea markets and auctions. The terminology of marble playing long ago entered every day usage: "playing for keeps," "losing your marbles," "knuckling down," so on and so forth.
Games with marbles have been played ever since there have been children. Small spherical objects that were used for games have been found in the pyramids of Egypt and the Indian mounds of North America. A marble tournament has been held at Tinsley Green in England every Good Friday weekend for over three hundred years. The United States National Marbles Tournament began in the early 1920s and is still held every June in Wildwood, New Jersey. Over the past two decades, the game of marbles has turned into the hobby of marble collecting.

A William Murray, solid core swirl, American, c. 1998 goes for $25-$40.

The hobby of marble collecting is just moving out of its infancy. Thirty years ago there were perhaps a handful of serious collectors. Today they number in the tens of thousands. The first marble show was run by my father, Stan, just twenty-five years ago. Today, there is a marble show somewhere in the country almost every weekend of the year.
The hobby of marble collecting can be divided into three categories: Handmade, Machine Made and Contemporary.
By definition, a handmade marble is a marble that was individually made by a craftsman. Non-glass handmade marbles have existed for eons. During primitive and medieval times, these were rounded stone or clay. Most stone and clay marbles (clays, benningtons, crockery, common chinas) are not very collectible today. The handmade marbles sought after by today's collectors are those that were produced in Germany during the second half of the 19th century and during the first two decades of the 20th century. German-made glass marbles represented the bulk of the marble market until the early 1920s. The supremacy of German marbles on the playing field ended due to a combination of several factors. These included the American invention of marble-making machinery (1905-1930), the cut-off of German imports into the U.S. during World War I (1914-1918), and the Fordney-McCumber Act tariffs (early 1920s).

Christenen Agate Company, Swirl, Cambridge OH, c. 1927-1929, 3/4", $350-$600

A handmade marble is a thing of beauty and a technical feat of glasswork and art. While these marbles were made using the "mass production" techniques of the time, in reality each handmade marble was individually crafted by a person. This cannot be said for machine-made marbles. Every handmade marble carries in it the individual skill and creativity of the craftsman who made it. You see this in the twist of the marble, in its design, and in its colors. The trained marble collector's eye can pick out those marbles made by a true craftsman, from those made by an apprentice or a journeyman.
Working with semi-molten glass is difficult at best. However, the ability to coax this syrupy substance into a rod or sphere that exhibits balance, design and symmetry requires tremendous skill. The appeal of handmade marbles lies in their individuality. No two marble canes were the same, and no two marbles cut off the same cane are exactly the same.
All handmade glass marbles have at least one pontil. This is the rough spot at the bottom pole of the marble where it was sheared off its glass cane or a punty. The production of handmade marbles was a very labor-intensive process. For example, the creation of a handmade swirl required between four and twelve separate manual steps. Single-gather marbles could require less steps, but only one marble was produced at a time, rather than a whole set of marbles off of one cane. As a result, far fewer handmade marbles exist than machine made marbles, thereby increasing their value.

Thirty-two English swirls on a solitaire board, England, c. 1870-1920. $1000-$2000

The past two decades have seen the handmade segment of the marble market mature. This side of the market has not been experiencing the recent price volatility that we have seen in the machine made side of the market. This does not mean that handmades do not go through price cycles. Different types of handmade marbles go in and out of favor with collectors, as their tastes change. But, the market has been much less volatile than the machine made market.
Until about a decade ago, machine made marbles were not considered collectible by many marble collectors. Most collectors ended up with machine made marbles as part of collections that they were buying because they wanted the handmade marbles in them. They would generally throw the machine made marbles in a box and forget about them. Very little attempt was made to identify or classify the many different types of machine made marbles, either by appearance or by manufacturer. There were some notable exceptions to this, especially in the area of Akro Agate Company or Peltier Glass Company marbles. But, for the most part, machine made marbles were not given much serious attention by the majority of collectors.

52. Lundberg Studios, Worldsphere; American, c. 1995, 4", $275-$350

For several reasons, all of that began to change during the mid-1980s. An influx of new collectors into the hobby created a demand for handmade marbles that had not previously existed. This increased the prices of handmade marbles. As those prices began to escalate at a rapid rate, collectors found that they could acquire many beautiful and colorful machine made marbles for the price of a single handmade marble.
Another reason that machine made marbles began to receive more attention was related to their historical significance. Virtually all handmade marbles were made in Germany and then imported into the United States (as well as other countries). Machine made marbles were almost exclusively an American product for the first half of this century. The rise of the American marble manufacturers mirrors in many ways the rise of the United States as an economic power.
The marble making machine is an American invention with the first one invented around 1905 by Martin F. Christensen from Akron, Ohio. The United States is considered a nation of tinkerers, and numerous design improvements were made over the next twenty-five years.

China, handpainted rose, Germany, c. 1860-1890, 11/16", $150-$250

Marble making machinery today is almost identical to machinery used as far back as 1930. The 1920s and 1930s saw the golden age of American marble production. As it became more difficult to engineer improvements in marble making machinery, manufacturers turned to designs and colors as the "hook" for selling their marbles. For about a decade, each year saw the introduction of fancier and more colorful marbles. This was choked off by the Great Depression, as manufacturers abandoned bright colors (expensive raw materials) in favor of much more economical colors.
Many examples of original packaging still exist, making it relatively easy to identify the different types and manufacturers of machine made marbles. An interest arose in documenting and preserving this period of Americana toy manufacturing.
The final reason for the increased interest in machine made marbles was nostalgic. By the mid-1980s, the kids who had played with mibs, aggies and commies in the playground and at the curb had grown up. As occurred with many other collectibles over the past two decades, collectors began buying back the objects of their youth that had been lost to numerous location changes or indifference.
So, by the late 1980s, the time and environment were ripe for an explosion of interest in machine made marbles. Over the past ten years or so, the number of people collecting machine made marbles has grown by leaps and bounds. There are now collectors who specialize in almost every American manufacturer of marbles: M.F. Christensen and Son Company, Christensen Agate Company, Akro Agate Company, Peltier Glass Company, Marble King, Vitro Agate Company, etc.

Indian, view from bottom showing pontil, Germany, c. 1870-1915, 5/8,", $45-$60