This was a $10 batch of marbles I got on a local second-hand site. I think I did ok! So I know these are old German marbles, and though I don't know the exact taxonomy for them all (caged, divided core, etc???) I can recognize that two of them are onionskins...but what is this green thing?? it has a few flecks of mica in there. What do you call it?

this beauty came as one of several surprises with my ebay purchase of a vitro tiger eye.

any ideas?

So I got this pretzel jar of marbles off Facebook marketplace, and confirmed with the seller he just got it from an estate sale. Whoever owned it previously was clearly a collector. $60 later I’m finding multiple modern art marbles, 6vitro conquerors, some vitro’s, some akros, and quite a few I can’t pin down but know are vintage visually from pop quizzes and whatnot. Am the happiest boy, and will be posting and asking questions on the ones I don’t know in the coming days. Even though I know the bottom half of the jar is all cats eyes, I’m still excited only being a 1/4 of the way through the jar >.< pretty sure this is my best random gamble/purchase so far

Very new to this, picked this board and marbles up from an op shop today. I think some of the marbles may be vintage but some may have been replaced with more modern ones?
Just after some thoughts please :)

Thank you!

Are these Vitro wedding cake marbles?

Hello! Another lot from me - this time, marbles I initially sorted with Wisplers but closer inspection has me second guessing. Hoping those of you with more Master/Peltier knowledge can help me out!

1. This is too neat to be a Wispler, or at least the majority are a lot more squiggly and thready, whereas this has wider stripes

2. Wondering Master for this, due to the seam top left. Again, much neater than the average Wispler

3. This one is interesting. The base has clear aqua through it, as well as wispy opaque white and what looks like an Oxblood-like smear on the surface of one side 🤔 Maaaybe Seike/Japanese

4. Another possible Master, considering Brushed Patch but unsure if the brown in the patch excludes that

5. Another suspected Brushed Patch, but are they usually so deep/fat??

6. I'd assumed Opaque Wispler but the colours are making me think Master, and some have quite a clear 'fin' seam...

7. The last 2 are what I have previously had identified as 'Mouldy', but I'm still not sure if that's a type, maker, or descriptor for marbles with the weird white 'mouldy' patches

8. As 7

Appreciate any input as to whether any should stay in the Europe box or can migrate to US Classics 😁

Thanks for your time!

am a complete newbie to marbles, so I bought this book off of Amazon to help me learn more, but the publication date is 2012. Does that matter in regard to value? Is there a newer book I should buy?

It is unsigned and about 1 inch in diameter

Hello good people of the marble world! I am a collector and reseller of…pretty much everything. I have been getting into marbles recently as I adored my collection as a kid (wish I still had them). I bought this lot from someone on Facebook marketplace for $50 who said she bought them from an antique store 60 years ago. Does that math add up for all of them? I learned the lighter ones with the shooter that has the bullseye are civil war which is really cool to me (though I am not a collector of war memorabilia). I appreciate any and all origin stories! I love some of them more than others, like the shooter with sort of a cappuccino colored swirl and the shooter that looks like a hunk of a crystal aaand the shooter with the red and green swirls (looks like a watermelon). The dark red clay ones have me curious as the seller told me she didn’t make them herself so she bought them from the antique store as well. Whats their story you think? I don’t think they are very nice to look at but the story could be an interesting one to tell! Thanks in advance and I hope you get excited a lil bit just looking at the pics!

Merci de m’aider a identifier

OK so did my homework on this one. I think it may be a MF Christensen Hand Gathered Brick Slag but really just not sure. I think the 9 pattern and other seam maybe confirm it? It's also a Pee Wee. I think this one to confirm I really do need an expert though :). The other possibility here would be Akro Agate Hand Gathered Slag??

Back again with another edition of "Don't Buy That" - based on UK eBay; all anonymized as the goal is to educate not inspire a dog pile!!

I try and subscribe to Hanlons Razor for things like this - sellers aren't (generally) being malicious or intentionally trying to rip us off, they just don't know, and it's easy to assume any misshapen marble or ones with defects are handmade or automatically old!

This batch are all labelled as something older than they are - the titles are vague enough that someone could be fooled, but here's why they are misleading and therefore overpriced.

1. Single pontil marbles tend to be transitional - the design shown is a standard lampwork technique and not antique; price isn't insane but certainly overvalued

2. Machine made caged cats eye that's a bit wonky, not antique, not handmade, and certainly not worth over £100

3. Again, more machine made marbles labelled as antique - these are vintage, and even being **super** generous and pricing them at £5/marble, that's £30, not nearly £130. The marbles shown are mainly Japanese and European from the 1950s onwards, and fairly common

4. Cheeky cheeky - these are modern, mass-produced lampwork marbles you can buy from places like Ali Express (~£30 for 100) and Amazon. Not 'Early' and not worth over £100...

5. Now these could be legit, but I wouldn't pay that price without better photos. They're described as swirls but no swirls visible. Plus the date of c1900 means they would be antique, and therefore handmade or transitional as the first successful machines haven't been made yet.

6. Machine-made - likely Japanese figure-8 marble from Seike or a transitional swirl from Yasuda; fairly common and certainly not worth £130

7. They added all the keywords here! Antique! Handmade! Rare! German! There are maybe 2 marbles I can see that fit that description, and that's not enough to justify the price

As a reminder, antique is defined as over 100 years old, so made before 1926 - this covers classic German hand-mades, many early Transitionals, and some early machine mades. Vintage is generally defined in marbles as pre-1970s, with Modern covering everything since.

Tl;Dr - not all old marbles are antique, and handmade marbles have specific characteristics you can look for. Being familiar with types of machine-made marbles will help you spot where a seller thinks they have something more valuable than it is!!

What do you think? Any you would have happily paid for?

Hope this post helps folks think critically when they see words like 'antique' and 'handmade' attached to high price lots!

Excuse the weird photos, the lens on my phone is busted so I have to use my camera.

I’ve been slowly sorting through the pile I got recently and finally got to the slags. I’ve now been playing “is this a pontil or damage?” And I’m bad at it. I have found several that have been grounded, but I’ve also found these.

I’ve found several that have this dent that might be a pontil, but I can’t find a similar photo. The red one in particular is in very good shape except for this.

Thank you for your help!

The one on the right looks a little bit different. Hard to really see clear seam lines due to the darker colors.

OK - so first at the top is 0.91 shooter Vitro Parrot. This one I kind of cheated because u/AuburnMoon17 the professor helped.

Tried my best to take poles and 90 degree photos.

Now for the rest (all measure between 0.58-0.61 diameter):

Row 1: Alley Agate St. Marys Ghost Swirls (Note Cadmium here is UV reactive)

Row 2: Marble King Bumble Bee Patch and Ribbon

Row 3: Vitro Agate All-Reds Patch and Ribbon

Row 4: Marble King Red (or Persimmon?) Rainbo Patch and Ribbon

Row 5: Marble King Multi-Color Rainbow Patch and Ribbon

Row 6: Marble King Yellow Rainbo Patch and Ribbon

Row 7: Marble King Blue Rainbo Patch and Ribbon

How did I do? Row 4 and 6 were hardest for me...

Hello all! It's been 10 months since I first posted in this subreddit asking for help identifying marbles. Since then, I have been immersed in everything marble that I could find. Just wanted to reach back out with my "keepers", most of which I inherited from my great grandmother via my mother. But given I have the fever, several more have been purchased since then. 😊 Please feel free to ask anything about what you see. (And please excuse the dust, that set is a pain to clean around LOL) Thanks!

It's by their pontil or colors. Easiest way to know is by their pontil, where the glass was snipped.

1840s -1850s had faceted pontils and a lot of colors that were mustard yellow, oxblood red, and translucent colors (Jelly).

1860s - 1870s had faceted pontils and more colors in the rainbow (I believe melted pontils were around

this time too)

Pre-1875 had grounded pontils, which were pontils grounded down to a matte finish.

Faceted and grounded pontils stopped after it became a lot of work. 1880s -1920s had pinched cut pontils which is the most common type after they became massed produced

(My information may be a little incorrect since this was from the top of my head)