I found my marbles,,,,

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harmony gardens

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Apr 9, 2009
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My Dad passed away in Jan and I've been helping my Mom deal with the accumulation of 45 years in our family home. I came across the cigar box that had my marbles in it. I used to love playing marbles when I was a kid. I had some that I considered treasures, because they were so pretty. I would look at them and was facinated at how the light would change as I turned them. Cats eyes were pretty neat, too. I also had some cheap ones that just added volume to the box.

I decided to sort them out, and separate the wheat from the chaff, and put them in plastic containers, so I could take them home with me. They were sitting on a computer chair. I needed to go get the covers, and when I got up, I hit the chair with my knee, and they all fell on the floor. lol What a mess!!!

Finding them after 35 years, or so, reminded me of my mom's most embarressing moment that I caused her as a kid. She was hosting a baby shower and had a housefull of women over. I was instructed to go entertain myself, and stay out of the way. I had to go to the bathroom, so I passed through the room. I did my thing, and then blew my nose, and tossed the kleenex away. I saw a tampon inserter in wastebasket, and it caught my eye. I had never seen anything like that, but it looked like it would make a good marble shooter. I took it to my room to try out my idea. I pulled the tube open and stuck a marble in the larger tube. It fit perfectly, and when I hit the smaller tube, it fired the marble out with the accuracy of a gun. It worked like a charm!! I was able to hit just about every shot. I was so excited. I could picture myself using it and cleaning up in the marble yard.

I just had to know what this thing was, so I went into the party, held up the tampon inserter and said,,, "Mom, can I have this??? It works great as a marble shooter." Her jaw dropped open and she said,,, "Go throw that away, and wash your hands". All the women were laughing, and I said "What is this thing??". She wouldn't tell me. I'm thinking,,, wow,,, what's going on here??

Later, my Dad told me what they were,,, and I understood, sort of. I could see that a used inserter would have germs, but I couldn't see any reason not to use an unused one as a marble shooter. My Mom disagreed, so that ended that. :facepalm:
 
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CartHeadMod

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Jan 17, 2010
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Holland, Michigan
I have been a marble collector for years.....some marbles, particularly those made by machine between 1915 and the depression have become especially valuable.....with prices ranging from $5 to $500 each......got any that look like this?

fisch997lg.jpg


notice the curved seam....any marble with this effect was made by the Christensen company....that type of seam is called a "diaper fold"......this particular style is a 'guinea'....broken pieces of guineas have been known to sell for $100 at auction.....

corkscrew marbles were all made by the Akro company....they were the only ones to figure out how to make a perfect spiral by machine...
1_6a460cd427fc96d52683bb6602ac7398.jpg


those will sell for $5 to $25 depending on quality and the number of colors and spirals...

the earliest machine made marbles date from around 1915 and almost all the companies went broke during the depression.....there were only a few factories and machines could only put out around 500 marbles a day.......that is why they are the rarest and most valuable......after WW2 another method was used for making marbles that could put out 50000 marbles a day but they generally had a solid core of blank glass of one color with a thin skin of other colors on the surface
marbles-34jbf05.jpg


or injected into them (catseyes).....those are only worth pennies, though I have gotten several dollars each for four vane, multi-colored cat's eyes.....
marble.jpg


marbles are randomly generated pocket sized works of art....
 
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