Beautiful Marbles

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Beautiful Marbles

 Dan Morphy auctions will be having a toy auction on March 4-5, 2016. There are the usual toys, but also on hand will be a fine collection of marbles. I don't know anything about marbles, expect that we all played with them as kids. However for the connoisseur collector, these marbles are serious toys with some hang very high prices!  

 I selected a small grouping of 6 times going up for bidding, but you might want to visit the Dan Morphy website to see the rest. These are really quite interesting collectibles when you read the descriptions of them.

Above and below: 

Marbles hand-made from natural stone, then painted or sponged.

The marble below has an estimated final price at auction of between A$ 800.00 - $ 1200.00 US.

The marble below has an estimated final price estimated to sell at between $ 1000.00 - $ 1500.00 US.

The marbles below are handmade.What always fascinated me is how the maker got the

sheep inside the marble, centred it and then was able to create a round marble!

 I had (I think), several of these types of marbles called onionskin. I assume they're called that because of the fine layers of colour throughout the marble.

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always,

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be.

Stacey Bindman

toysearcher@gmail.com

The Simpler Things in Life

Monday, December 24,2012
            (The day before Christmas)

The Day Before Christmas

     I couldn't seem to figure out what I'd post for the last couple of days. However, I couldn't let this day go by without writing something. I was up early as usual, and went to Live Auctioneers - always a reliable resource for ideas and of course photos. I've looked at today's item, but never really though to post it. However, today, I got "mushy", and said, todays' content is just the right thing for today,and of course tomorrow! I'm Jewish, but the content relates to me as well.

     Among all of the toys that I received as a child and a kid (a slightly older child), were marbles. All of my street friends I think had them as well. However, the simplest of toys were not often played with. We'd play baseball, tree tag, stando*, hide-and-seek,5-10, and so forth, but marbles were so simple", they were played with very rarely.  (* I'll explain all of these games after the holidays).

     What's ironic about marbles, is that we all had marbles, yet who ever looked at them? A Meccano set, my 6-shooter, my derringer, the Lionel train set, my Minibricks. all were there and were much larger and substantial that marbles.

     Yet when I think back, they were always there in the house somewhere,in a nice Crown Royal dark navy blue bag to play with whenever the rare occasion arose.

    Even when I was downloading the photos, I took a second to look at the descriptions, and Dan  Morphy and Company certainly knew their marbles! I never realized how much variance and detail were needed for the simplest of play things. And even all these years (64 years +) , I never associated glass marbles with "marble marbles"- the original source.

     So that's it for the narrative.  The marbles certainly seem to be apropro (subtable) for today. They're simple, but complex, were inexpensive yet beautiful, and were always there when needed. And presented on the post, without any description, they certainly are decorative the the Christmas Season. 

     So this year will be the last year where you could write the dates as 01-01-01,02-02-02, 

03-03-03, up to 12-12-12. The decade + the 2 years flew by, and now we're going to be seeing 2013. 

So to everyone out there I wish you a very merry season in whatever way you celebrate, and may you all have a healthy and Happy New Year, both for yourself, and your families.

Sincerely,

Stacey

w

hoever I chose to play with them.