Collecting Glass Marbles (A fun and great hobby for all ages)

I collect marbles with my 6 year old son, Howie. We both enjoy this marble collecting hobby and spend anywhere from a few minutes to hours on a regular basis looking at our marble collection and trying to identify the maker and the style. This is much easier said than done since some makers used similar colors and styles for various marbles. We currently have close to 3000 marbles, give or take a few hundred. Marble collecting is a great hobby to take up for yourself, your children, and grandchildren. It's a wholesome hobby and the bonding time is priceless. Identifying the marbles and various makers involve research and a few marble books. We started collecting them in the late summer of 2007 and I'm far from an expert, but I have learned a lot in the last year. Finding them outside of the online world can be enjoyable by going to garage sales or antique stores trying to add some beautiful marbles to your collection. Even buying online can be exciting by looking at the photos and determing how much you should pay for them, or seeing some exquisite marbles that are beyond your price range and dreaming of owning them. Be careful when buying marbles because photos can be deceiving, the best way to evaluate a marble is holding in your hand and inspecting it yourself. At times when looking at marbles you should use a magnifying glass or jeweler's loupe to make sure it isn't a remelt or been polished because this cuts down on the value of a marble.

My son and I inherited about half of them from my departed grandfather who used to shoot marbles when he was a young boy until he was in 50's because then opportunities to shoot marbles became fewer by the 1970's, at least this is what he told me. He used to show me his marbles when I was young and I always appreciated the beauty and stories behind some of his marbles. Grandpa had them stored in several glass jars. Unfortunately, the majority of his hand-made marbles disappeared before I received the collection. I prefer the old German Handmades and Vitro and Akro are my favorite machine made.

Most marbles currently are made of glass. In the past, clay was predominantly used. Glass marbles started to be made around mid 1800's from what I've heard/read and the earliest glass marbles came from Germany. Of course there are stone marbles and porcelain marbles have been made for some years. Some even used ball bearings called steelies to shoot marbles. I prefer glass marbles over others but everyone is different. Marbles generally range between 1/2"-a little over an inch. Typically a shooter is 3/4 or larger. Really small marbles are called Peewees; 3/8-1/2" are general sizes of most peewees but some have been made that are even under 1/4". Once you get involved in Marbles, I warn you, you could be hooked. Don't worry that's a good thing:) I've had marble collectors contact me and say keep up the good work but please feel free to add links and comments on the page. Make suggestions on polls or duels, I'd like to hear from you.

I'm also a member of LOM (Land of Marbles) and Marble Connection which are pretty cool sites for ID purposes/values/and just good, informative marble talk or to have questions answered. There are other sites as well but these are the two I use. I don't post much anymore but I browse quite a bit. I welcome comments and feedback.

Just added a new poll about your favorite colored marbles so vote on that as well, if you desire. I know most marbles have multi colors but what is your favorite main color on a marble?

Some may wonder how do you measure a marble to get it's size and why is it important? If you ever buy and sell marbles, size is important because some marbles were made in various sizes and the larger ones almost always have more value. I use a caliper to measure a marble and using a tape to measure around a marble is not the correct way, that measures the marble's circumference. Electronic calipers can be be picked up at a reasonable price with a basic Centech brand model selling close to 15-20 dollars at Harbor Freight or online.