This is probably one of the most expensive and saught after marbles I own. It's
a Christensen Agate "Flame". CAC marbles were only made during 1925-1933. The
name comes from the flame lick pattern. I have yet to see another one like it on
ebay or in books. There are similar ones that Grist's last book (RIP) depicted
in the rear under Rarities. I contacted a very well known collector and dealer
recently to get his opinion on the value. He sells marbles consistantly for
others on consignment and gets upwards of a thousand dollars on many of his
sales. I trust his word. He said it was worth between $150.00 to $300.00.
Needless to say, I didn't pay that...I got this in a lot with others. My focus on
collecting anything is how cool I think it is...and many times value or
rareness. You see, I don't want to hoard and die with the "most toys"...this and
all I do is for my kids. They don't know it yet, but when I am gone they will
inherit a very nice collection of model kits, marbles, toys, tools, knives,
watches, jewelry, furniture and etc.. They can choose to sell it all or keep it
in the family. Not every lot of marbles I buy has such a valuable "mib". In fact this one came in a jar my father in law gave to me.

If you have marbles like this, beware that several companies made this style and you

must know which company made them and how rare the colors are, how stylish the licks

are and condition. A marble like this by another company would not have the colors or the

exact pattern and seams.....most likely worth much, much less.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This post was edited by Bob Black at December 5, 2011 9:46:34 AM CST

Here is a very nice Akro Sparkler I bought awhile back from a dealer at the Brass Armadillo in Omaha, Ne. I think I paid about $15.00 for it and it's actually worth about $50.00 today. It's definately one of my favorite marbles in my collection. There are at least two types of "sparklers" that I know of. One is what I am showing here and the other is pictured below.

 

 

This is what we call a "Foreign Sparkler". The actual maker is hard to pinpoint, but it's from across seas, most likely Germany. The two marbles are similar and that is the only reason this one gets the name. This type is rather undesirable, but a must in any collection. These sell for about $10 or less. I am sure there are others with some special look and colors that would sell for more.

 

A group shot of 30 Ravenswood marbles I bought a few months ago. They are all in nm-m condition and each one should be worth about 1/3 to 1/2 of what I paid for the whole lot. These Ravenswoods are sometimes very hard to identify as the "West Viriginia Swirls" are all so similar in appearance. An example of several different manufacturers is pictured below......mixed up, can you tell who made which one?

mixed lot of West Virginia Swirls, nicnamed after the state considered to be the "marble capitol".

 

 

Here are my Bennington's. These are roughly 100 years old and made in Germany. I am not "hot" after these types, but I come across them in collections I buy. I thought someone here would enjoy them. :-)

Antique clays.

Some China marbles, crockery and or porcelain. The neat thing about these are many of them were hand decorated. It's hard to see in this photo because of lighting and the fact I didn't show all sides of each marble..but each has stripes or some sort of marking that was hand painted. The real light colored one with brilliant striping...could be a new one but the rest are definately not.

Somehow I can just imagine children oflong ago playing with these. thanks for sharing

Really cool Bob. I just seen a new site that came up for marbles and looks really good: http://madmarbles.com/
check it and let us know if its any good.

I am glad to share! I will post more as time allows.
Jeff, thanks for the link I have not seen that one yet looks great!
I am a member of a few marble forums, but am an admin on one that's pretty cool. As time moves on, more sites and books come available which really helps. I have much to learn, but couldn't have learned what I know without all of them.

After looking at my photos, there are a couple clays in the Bennington's tray...oops. I keep all of these in the same jar so sorting them for the photos was fun lol

Here are some of my hand mades. These are hand made and twisted from a "cane" of glass rod. Each marble takes up to two days to make. Each strand of color is a strand of stretched and cut glass that is rolled onto a layer of clear hot glass and then bent around and twisted in wet newspaper until the marble is round. If the maker desires more colors, they add more clear glass and repeat the process until they are satisfied which is why they take so long to make. This cannot be done by machine and they are still made today. Many people mistake new for old. There are some in this lot that would be accused of being new. The reason for this is, there are marble polishers out there. These cane twisted marbles have a "pontil" at each end where the beginning and end of the marble was cut. They are most commonly "melted pontils" on these marbles, heated with a torch to smooth the glass down where it was broken from the cane. Back to the marble polishers... when these marbles have chips and get polished with diamond cups, they lose the pontils at each end...making them mistakingly look new. You should be able to tell which ones were polished in this photo. There are also some pieces of "cullet" to the left. One piece is the "end of cane" marble that is not quite finished. This happened when the maker got to the end of the cane and this probably broke off making it impossible to finish. The other cullet is actually pieces of glass that was to form a machine made marble. This is how the glass looks as it's streaming from the machine before it's cut and a marble is rolled. There is a LOT to explain about these processes and honestly it's best to grab a book as I might leave something out or confuse you. :-)

Here are the only bullseye agates I have. These are harder to come by than the above shown 100+ year olds I have. I don't know why that is. These are cut from real agate and polished.

A great lesson in the history of marble making! Thanks

Acorn Hill Antiques -Kira said:
A great lesson in the history of marble making! Thanks

Here are some of my Vitro machine made marbles. I have probably 3 times more than this and of various types. I will get photos of them eventually. :-)

Here are "some" of my various swirls, known as "West Virginia Swirls". There are various companies displayed here. I have not sorted by brand yet as this is probably the most difficult type to identify next to slags. You can see Alley, Alox, CHampion, Ravenswood, Christensen Agate and more. Since I have yet to ID them all by brands, I have no idea what kind of value sits here...but I do know that finding a lot of this size is not going to be easy. I have found some of these in the ended auctions on ebay selling for $40 each so that somewhat gives me an idea. However, not every swirl is worth a lot!

Game marbles. Again.....some of the ones I have lol! The first set is not in very good condition box wise, but what's cool is the note inside.

This set is in EXCELLENT condition , but very common. Because it is complete with dividers and so clean and crisp it's value is about $45.00. You will see one blue marble is missing, but it's been replaced since the photo was taken. I paid $20.00 for them, so it's a decent investment.

Some more Vitro from my collection. I bought these from dealer Ann at the BA in Omaha. These were part of her's and her brother marbles from when they were kids in the 1960's. I was glad to get the background on them since I know her. I paid $45 for the bag full as it is. The investment was about exactly what they are worth and I am ok with that, being I don't always buy for profit. I will find a display case for them that will allow me to put the bag flat inside with a divider for the marbles to sit. It's amazing to me that the bag is not torn or cracked after all these years. There are other "Reds" that are more desirable and hold more value. When I get time I will get photos of the few I have.

When shopping around for marbles at antique stores, I always find bags or jars of marbles which are overpriced. It's easy to spend a lot of money on marbles that are virtually worthless. You have a few different types of buyers for marbles. One buyer is looking for just any marbles. Another buyer is looking for marbles that look old and another buyer is looking for specific marbles. The beginner collector is the target in most cases. I was a beginner just like all marble collectors at one point. I "bit" on several jars of marbles to find out they were very common and not worth near what I paid. We call this an "educational purchase". We all learn somehow and making mistakes is not such a bad thing. These marbles pictured are old and collectible but not worth more than 10-20 cents each. These are very common. One mistake people make is thinking that price/reference guides are correct on pricing. Most of the time marbles are worth 20% or more less than the book says, but in some rare cases they are worth 50% more than the book! Peltier made these Rainbo's (that's how it was spelled) somewhere between 1920 and 1950. They had stripes in colors like orange, red, yellow, blue, green....all the colors of the rainbo(w). I will post more photos of other Rainbo's after this post.

More Peltier Rainbo's

 

Rainbo's with a light blue base

Do you see what these Peltier Rainbo's have in common? The thing they have in common is what identifies them as Peltier. Anyone notice?

A quick note: The Christensen Agate Flame first pictured in this thread resides in the Marble Museum in York, Nebraska now. I plan on going back there to visit and buy. Lee and his son Charles have an IMPRESSIVE collection and many, many for sale.

For Cathy Trotter. Here is the Peltier Christmas Tree. This is from my collection, if you need more photos of it let me know.