How can I tell if my marbles are hand made?
1. During this procedure, a stick is used where the marble is attached. Once done, the stick is broken on its end. This leaves a tiny rough patch on the marble, which is known as the pontil. Although most new marbles are made by machine therefore leaving them without pontil, there are still those that are handmade.
How do you identify Christensen marbles?
Christensen & Son Company marbles are Slags. These marbles have a swirling pattern of transparent colored base with opaque white swirls. M.F. Christensen & Son Company slags are easily identified by the “9” pattern on the top pole and the “cut-off line” on the bottom.
How do you know if your marbles are worth money?
Marbles will be worth more money if they are completely rounded. For older marbles, the roundness indicates the amount of time an artisan put into making the toy. More time means a better shape and more value. With newer models, perfectly round marbles have been well kept.
What is the rarest color of marbles?
White and black are the most common. White or black opaques under 5/8” are usually Ballot Box marbles. Blue, pink, and green are rarer.
When did they stop hand making marbles?
The supremacy of German marbles on the playing field finally ended during the early 1900s due to a combination of several factors. These include the American invention of mechanized marble production, the cut-off of German imports into the U.S. during World War I and the Fordney‑McCumber Act tariffs of the early 1920s.
How do I identify vintage marbles?
When it comes to glass, handmade antique marbles are most valuable. They can be easily identified because they have a tiny scar, or pontil mark, where they were cut from the glass rod while being made.
What are the rarest marbles?
Some of the rarest handmade antique glass marbles are called “sulphides.” These are large, translucent marbles that have an encased miniature figure in the center. The figures were made from clay rather than sulphur, as some early collectors mistakenly thought.
What is the rarest marble in the world?
The White Statuario marble of Carrara is one of the most precious marbles in the world.
How can you tell Ravenswood marbles?
When the base color is opaque – Ravenswood often used a very transparent swirl color to “snake” across the surface. This line of transparent color commonly dives down into the marble proving some color depth. This is often a good Ravenswood diagnostic when used with other ID methods.
What kind of marbles have been hand gathered?
For at least a short period of time early in the company’s history, marbles were hand- gathered prior to the implementation of a feed system. We have found opaques, slags, swirls, and cobras that exhibit hand-gathered “9”s and “tails”.
When were glass marbles invented?
hand made GLASS marbles Hand made glass marbles were invented in Lauscha, Germany, in the late 1840s. They were produced until the early part of the twentieth century, when World War I and the invention of marble producing machinery in America effectively ended the hand made marble industry.
How are Christensen agate marbles made?
The most common Christensen Agate Company marbles are Swirls. Christensen Agate produced swirls in a wide variety of different patterns and color combinations. The marbles were made by mixing two or more glass colors in a single furnace. Because each color was a different density, they did not melt together, but rather created strata.
What is a Christensen slag marble?
The M.F. Christensen and Son Company operated from 1904-1917, and produced not only slags but also several other types of marbles. Though technically “Transitional” because they were gathered by hand but rounded by machine, most collectors group them with other machine made marbles, and therefore that is how I’ve discussed them.