Topic: contemporary marbles & your feelings about them as a...

[Mike E etc]

art glass collectable.
  For the past 10, 15 years they have gained a following. I would like some notions on where they may or may not fit in with collecting fine glass in general. Plus do you see a further growing interest in contemporary artglass marbles.

Thanks



Mike, new here, E

[Angela B]

Hi Mike,
Welcome first of all. Great to have new contributors.
This is just a personal view about marbles and glass collecting. Nice to be asked to philosophise on a stormy Sunday morning when I should be doing all kinds of work instead! As Adam Aaronson once told me, the Glass Message Board is a great way to escape for a while.
There seem to be two kinds of glass collectors. There's the eclectic kind like myself, with a great interest in absolutely anything made of glass, especially if its something I don't know much about. And then there are the specialist collectors who are only interested in the kind of glass they collect, like carnival glass or paperweights or marbles. But then I reckon there's a continuum in between, with most glass collectors being at least interested to read about other kinds of glass. If you'd like to write an article for us about glass marbles, it would be a good topic for the Glass Museum (http://www.glass.co.nz/)
What do other people think?
All the best
Angela

[Frank S]

Hi and welcome.

As far as glass marbles as a collectible, they are a glass art form. I see them for sale at shows. I am sure they have a following as does most any type of glass. As far as where they fit in, if it is glass it fits. I like all glass, but there are certain shapes I like better than others. I like candlesticks, Jack In The Pulpits, decanters, rose bowls to name a few In fact I think I like to many shapes. LOL As far as what is in the future with their collecting, I don't think it should matter. Get what you like and when you want to. Just remember it only takes 2 or 3 of something to make a collection.

[Ivo]

There is a little devil in the back of my mind which makes me justify the purchase of paperweights, candlesticks, Jack In The Pulpits, decanters, rose bowls etc.  with the argument that they are collectible and that there is a market for them.  The same little devil tells me NOT to buy ashtrays.

[Frank]

But Ivo, ashtrays are the ideal display for marbles! :twisted:

As to marbles, I am impressed with the output of some of the marble artists - not yet indulged as the ones I am most attracted to usually sell for several hundred dollars a piece... but I am sure that some will join the rest of the glass one day.

[Mike E etc]

Thanks for the responses Frank and Ivo. I should say that I come from this as one who collects/collected, new found poverty here, antique and early machine made marbles and also makes marbles. Thus the questions. My basic two markets are those who collect the older marbles, I make some mimics, and those who go for the contemporary look.
 From the responses so far I would gather that all that has to happen is that you as a collector has to get hooked on a marble or two. lol. There has been an explosion of lampworkers turning to making marbles and I believe the market is not keeping up.
  So, I should avoid ash trays...lol, the Akro ash trays with aventurine sell well.
   Ivo, I am a wanna be paperweight maker!
   I do have a small collection of vaseline glass of all kinds.
    An article...lol I have spent 45 minutes on this bit and I know when I read it later I will find a flaw...
Thanks for the input.

  Mike E

PS Frank, good luck on the lighting book, I have six or so lightbulbs packed away...glass, right..lol.

[Frank]

Mike E,

Make bigger marbles, flatten the base and heigh-ho a paperweight.  :oops: Get ready for the flak!

As to lightbulbs, they do tend to keep colliding with my glass research. It seems that almost every glassworks has been involved in lighting in some way. Prior to mechanisation around 1920 all were made by hand - so with demand in many millions per year by then, it is not so surprising.

It would be an interesting future subject to research the impact that the lightbulb had on glassworks fortunes - particularly when mechanisation came in. Perhaps it is no surprise that a lot of glassworks went to the wall around 1920, but I doubt lightbulbs were the only cause but could have had a significant effect then.

Checkout the Kilokat lighting forum, link on my site at http://www.ysartglass.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Bulbs/lightbulbs.htm

There two or three glass artists wanting to make lightbulbs as part of their works.

Frank

[Bernard C]

Mike E,

I buy marbles at car boots &c, and bag them up in 11s with an alley and a leaflet giving detail of various games, taken from a '30s encyclopedia of sports, games and pastimes.    These I sell every now and again at the Milton Keynes shopping centre antique fair - and they go like wildfire!   My marble mountain has been on the local wireless (translates to radio) and may yet appear on local TV.

I am completely lost on paperweights and marbles, both of which remain mysterious to me.   Would you be so kind as to recommend a website or a cheap and  cheerful publication that would help me spot a "good" marble, one that I should seek expert advice on?   I don't need an identification guide - just enough to put something special on one side for investigation.

Thanks, Bernard C.

[KevinH]

Hi,

I'm a paperweight collector of the non-flak variety! I actually started with "coloured Victorian glass" and anything else that took my fancy as long as it was cheap enough, but then I got hooked on the "domes with coloured bits in".

Although I am now both a "generalist" and a "specialist", I had never found myself drawn to marbles as a collecting theme. But in the past year I have become aware of "Art Glass Marbles" and I can see that people would indeed enjoy collecting these as much as I enjoy my own focus.

Here in the UK, I dont get to see many Art Glass Marbles, but I have recently checked some websites and I was reminded that Teign Valley Glass in Devon, UK started out in 1981 as Marble makers. They provided thier sister business, "House of Marbles" with "Victorian replicas". Their products are now "worldwide".

Neverthelss, it does appear that the main following is still within the US, and that seems to be borne out by the fact that almost all of the sites listed under the subject are US-based.

However, Sweetbriar Gallery, a major UK paperweight dealership, are now offering some items from Cuneo Furnace, a US Marble maker. And I have to admit that those items are tempting me into the field! The ones currently shown in the Sweetbriar website are all 2 1/4 inch and are very well made with coloured swirls and filigree twists. It is the size and form that, with my paperweight collector hat on, draws my interest.

Apart from that, the closest I actually have to a Marble in my own collection is a 1 3/4 inch diameter, 1 1/4 inch high 'paperweight' with an "extremely artistic" blue and yellow-green central swirl. I say it's "artistic" because I made it - during a one-day course at a glass studio. The instructor said of it, "Well ... we'd call that a marble"!

[Mike E etc]

Frank,
   I know one glass artist who takes marbles that do not sell and grinds a flat spot and calls them paperweights, not my cup of tea.
  Light bulbs as art....I like it!

Bernard,
  you can make some good money with new machine made marbles. There are a couple companies who are making some very nice marbles and some turn out so good that there is a following of collectors who look for the best examples to collect from these companies.
  Check my site out, there is a lot of links to marbles and other things related to lampwork.

KevH,
  There are some marble collectors in the UK...I have sent three or four that way.
 Thanks for the information.
 I think it is great when a collector gets to try there hand a molten glass, it had to be fun for you.


Mike E