By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
A marble with flecks of gold has a $550 price tag.
Lose your marbles?
Look here
Bottle collectors show
By Burl Burlingame
features some little glass treasures
Star-BulletinAlthough marbles made of fired clay have been found in Neolithic caves, and everyone from ancient Egyptians to American Indians played with the small round balls, when you consider the humble "marble" you're generally thinking of a sphere of clear glass with a swirl of colored mineral snaking through it. Catseyes. Moonies. Agates. Bumblebees. Among the simplest of toys.
And, because the handmade marble is vanishing amid a flood of cheaply made, dull, machined marbles, the originals have become collectable. Many will be on display at this weekend's Hawaii Historical Bottle Collectors Club Show and Sale.
"Marbles are . . . just beautiful," explained Julie Lauster of Antique Alley, who has seen a rise in marble interest in the past few years. "They have color, they can be one of a kind, they're still affordable, and they can be worth thousands."
The word itself comes from marbles made of marble chips at Italian quarries, but the modern marble is fairly recent, being snipped from rods of heated glass and rolled. The nipple at the snipping point is called a "pontil," and helps signify an antique marble.
"Glass marbles were originally from Italy, but the Germans really dominated the market a hundred years ago," said Lauster.
But then came World War I, plus American manufacturing capability. Americans dominated the marble industry and companies like Peltier, Akro, Christensen and Vitro became household -- OK, play yard -- names. In the 1950s, the Japanese and Chinese began mass-producing marbles. "The 1950s cat's eyes from Japan are probably the most common marble," said Lauster. They basically put the American marble companies out of business."
Modern marbles are not as collectible. The exception are hand-made objet d'art "marbles" made by glass-blowers. You won't be knuckling THOSE into the ring.
Some were made with uranium in them and glow in the dark. Others are swirls of colors with obvious nicknames: blue and yellow are "cub scouts," yellow and black are "bumblebees," red and yellow are "ketchup and mustard."
Some antique marbles from China or Japan are made of porcelain. But then, anything round can be used as a marble, and generally has. Some kids use the plastic balls from roll-on deodorant.
As an off-shoot of bottle-collecting, marble collecting has glass in common. "The thing is is, it's become harder to collect bottles because the good dump sites are pretty much sifted through already. "But marbles can be found almost anywhere," said Lauster.
Antique marbles are graded by type, size (bigger is better), condition and eye appeal. Obviously, the last two are personal preferences. Like any other collectible, an item is worth only what you're willing to pay for it.
Bottle show and sale
The Hawaii Historical Bottle Collectors Club presents its 25th annual show:
When: 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Sunday
