Stunning Marble Auction from Morphy Auctions

April 15th, 2012,

Morphy Auctions offers yet another stunning collection of marbles up for auction. This auction consists of more than 700 lots, heavily weighted on exceptional and rare vintage handmade marbles. There are also a number of rare and exotic Christensen Agate machine made marbles in this auction.

You need not be there in Pennsylvania on May 26th to bid in this auction. Morphy Auctions offers online bidding, and the exceptional photos of each lot means you can bid in confidence.

Even if you are not bidding, take the opportunity to peruse this fantastic collection of marbles. Once these enter the hands of private collectors, chances are you won't be seeing them ever again.

The 2012 Orange County Marble Show is Coming March 17th

March 10th, 2012,

Southern California is known for its beaches and fair weather, not its marbles or its marble shows, except just once a year when The Orange County Marble Show happens.

Coming March 17th, the 2012 Orange County Marble show is free this year. That's right, FREE admission and FREE parking. That means more money to spend on those precious glass globes we call marbles.

It will be held 9AM - 4 PM on Saturday, March 17th at the Howard Johnson Hotel on 222 W. Houston Ave, Fullerton CA, 92832. For room reservations, call 714-992-1700.

Bring friends and family. There won't just be old playing marbles. There will be fantastic contemporary hand made marbles and glass art for sale, which make lovely and unique gifts.

Believe me when I say you have not properly used your eyes in this world until they have feasted on the assortment of vintage and contemporary marble masterpieces you will see at a show like this. And this show is the only one in our area, so don't miss this opportunity.

For more information, contact Rich Shelby of Santa's Bling at santarich1947@gmail.com or 951-212-4435.

Also, if you have some old marbles you'd like to learn more about or have appraised, bring them to the show.

The Best Marble Collecting Advice

February 20th, 2012,

The best advice for making a happy marble collector is this: Collect what you like.

Nobody enters this hobby knowing exactly what he likes. Given the variety of marble makers, styles and eras to choose from, even veteran collectors stumble upon styles or examples new to them. That's part of the magic of collecting marbles.

Finding out what you like can take a very long time if you are just finding handfuls or marbles here and there at garage sales and flea markets. It is a fun and exciting method for discovery, but it can be slow and frustrating depending upon where you live and how lucky you are. Worse, you typically find marbles in poor condition.

Instead, I would recommend you attend as many marble shows as you can, where you can see and handle the real deal. Marble collectors love to talk about marbles, and most eagerly tutor beginners. They get a glint in their eye and will enthusiastically bend your ear on marble colors, condition, seams, and patterns, and other minutiae. You can learn a lot just going from table to table asking questions, and you're going to see great marbles in great condition. When something catches your eye, ask everything you can about it. Purchase the best example you can afford, and take it around to other tables, show it to them, and ask more questions.

By the end of one marble show you should have a better sense of what you like, and hopefully a few nice marbles to show for it. It will also lower your tolerance for marbles in poor condition, so you don't spend more than you should.

Soon you'll discover just what you like, rather than following popular opinion. Then just rinse and repeat.

Condition is Everything

December 8th, 2011,

It shouldn't take long for a budding marble collector to discover the chief rule of marble collecting: Condition is everything.

As an untutored new collector, I learned this lesson the hard way. Once the collecting fever took hold, I craved old marbles. The more the merrier. I can remember driving hours to buy giant lots of marbles. I would grab handfuls and look at them as I drove home. Condition was an afterthought to me. I was too excited admiring and discovering the variety and beauty of these little glass globes.

Gradually, as I was exposed to all the styles and makers, my excitement died down. After so much admiring and discovering and sorting, I began noticing a factor common to most of the marbles I paid (and overpaid) for: most of my marbles were pretty beat up. A handful, however, were not beat up and these were the ones I cherished. The contrast was so glaring between the pristine, mint condition marbles and the general populace of battle-scarred veterans, that I began to feel like something of a gold miner. I had sifted through an enormous amount of ore only to discover a few prize nuggets.

Had I been exposed earlier on to veteran collectors or marble shows, I might have learned the rule sooner, but eventually the light bulb finally stayed on. Having obsessed over the production and history and culture of marbles, I realized why mint condition vintage marbles are so precious. Not only are they as beautiful as the day they were made; they also are miraculous survivors.

Consider the doomed life of the average glass marble. To survive in mint, like-new condition it must by some series of miracles be spared its natural fate as a toy marble. Not only was it cheap to buy, it was sold to boys for a game that was played in the dirt and whose object was to violently strike other marbles. It would be a minor miracle if they managed to stay unblemished for a week, much less 30, 70 or 100 years or more.

But some did survive, tucked away in closets and attics, some even in their original boxes. Others were tossed into jars of older marbles and never played with, as the game of marbles lost its appeal.

And so every marble collector learns very quickly from buying up lots of marbles in the "wild" that most old marbles are damaged from play and from the vicissitudes of rough storage.

When you finally get a mint condition marble and compare it to a damaged one, the differences are stunning. The damaged ones, for all their faded glory, simply cannot compare to the glistening "wet" mint marble looking like the day it was made. When you finally get your hands on one and really appreciate it, then you realize these are not mere toys, but works of art.

This explains why collectors might pay, say, $80 for a single marble in mint condition, but would not pay $10 for the same marble with one small chip in it. This principle applies throughout the antiques world, but for these delicate glass beauties it is especially true.

If I had to do it all over again, I would certainly have paid a lot less for those lots of beat up marbles I was so excited to get. But I don't regret the experiences. It was an exciting and fun way to learn, but these days I am very unforgiving of damage on marbles. I still appreciate them for what they represent. Holding a damaged marble, I can almost hear the shouts of boys knuckling down and the nick of glass upon glass.

But when I hold a mint, undamaged marble, I see a fragile object of art frozen in time, born of fire and factory, spared its common fate. For sheer beauty alone they are worthy of being collected and displayed, but they are layered with so much history and nostalgia that the effect is dizzying.

I can feel the fever rising again. I need more marbles!

Incredible Marble Auction on December 3rd

November 12th, 2011,

Some amazing marbles from the collection of Paul Baumann will be auctioned December 3rd, 2011 by Morphy Auctions. Paul Baumann began collecting marbles in 1952 and wrote one of the first marble collecting books, Collecting Antique Marbles, in 1970. This was long before marble clubs and shows. Paul and his father (who collected marbles since the 1930s) are true pioneers offering up some incredibly rare gems among the 700+ lots in this auction.

The 2 1/4" onionskin peacock lutz marble with mica [right] is one of the big head turners in this auction, with an estimated sale price between $10,000 - $20,000. Its wet mint condition, along with its artistic vibrancy, makes it seem almost contemporary.

Also up for auction are not one but two original Christensen Agate "World's Best Guineas" boxes, filled to the brim and sure to fetch at least $6,000 per box. There are also several exquisite painted sulphides.

We can thank Morphy Auctions for once again posting detailed pictures of every lot in this incredible marble auction. Don't forget that you can register and bid online. Go and feast your eyes on the online catalog of this amazing marble auction.