Marble Production Methods over Time
For More Info, See The Glossary of Marble Terminology. The Different Classes
of Glass Marbles: Hand-made
& Hand-Gathered Marbles The first glass marbles manufactured for the world toy market are in this category. In 1850, Elias Greiner of Lauscha, German received permission from the Emperor’s ministers to manufacture this new class of glass goods. Herr Greiner made these marbles with ‘marbelshears,’ a tool previously invented by his Step-brother to make artificial animal eyes and glass buttons. The typical diagnostic features being marbles of the onyx style, referred to as “artificial agates and precious balls,” colored “marbled, agate, amber, lapis lazuli, topaz, etc.,” and having a regular ground or finely facetted pontil. Other diagnostic design features resemble number ‘nines, ‘sixes,’ tails which wrap around the marble. The
first glass marbles manufactured in the United States for the toy market
are in this category as well. In 1890, James Harvey Leighton manufactured
glass marbles at The S. C. Dyke & Company, receiving a
US patent for
the hand-tool and process he invented in 1891. Leighton’s process turned
out glass marbles at a rate three times faster than the German
“marbelshears” and where manufactured in the United States until 1908.
Leighton’s marbles, also in the onyx style, referred to as “immies”
or “imitation agates” in the historic record. These marbles are
similar in design to those mentioned above that were made by Elias Greiner of
Lauscha, German, but these marbles have a unique diagnostic pontil referred to by collectors as
'melted pontils'. This
class of toy marbles also includes ‘End of Day,’ ‘Clouds’ and
Sulphides that were manufactured in Germany until the around WWII, and some
contemporary art spheres created today could also fall into this
classification. Hand-made
Marbles from Canes These
marbles are easily identified by two cut-off marks, one at each axial
pole. The first record of toy marbles manufactured from canes comes from an application submitted by Elias Greiner of Lauscha Germany to the Emperor’s ministers in 1855, seeking permission for their manufacture. These marbles are known to collectors as German Swirls, Joseph Swirls, Onionskins, Lutz, and others, were believed manufactured in high numbers until around WWII. Also
falling into this class are those marbles collectors call Indians, Banded
Transparents, Banded Opaques and the like. These were first manufactured
in the United States at The American Marble & Toy Manufacturing Company
in 1892 and
continued for a about a year. American retail catalogs
show these same marbles as “imported” also, and archeological evidence from
Lauscha, Germany shows these were indeed manufactured there too. This
class also includes a majority of the contemporary art spheres created today from
prefabricated glass canes. There is a second method of making cane marbles that employs a bench mounted press that looks like a big pair of pliers. This method is also treated under hand gathered pressed glass marbles because the marbles are formed by squeezing or pressing. There are only a few toy marbles made with this technique and they look nothing like regular cane marbles that collectors are familiar with. Some examples of these are the odd marbles identified as Czechoslovakian by collectors. The majority of the type made by this process are made of transparent monochromatic glass and are utilized as bottle stoppers in "Codd" bottles. It is known that Germany produced many of the bottle stopper marbles made by this method. Hand-gathered
& Hand-pressed Marbles
While all of the above methods were also used to manufacture industrial marbles, this class of glass marbles seems to have been largely used to manufacture industrial marbles, furniture casters, bottle balls and the like. There are a few known foreign made marbles that were possibly marketed as toys, primarily from the former Czech Republic (colorful ones at that). Typically, these were made of flint or clear glass, but some examples exist in other transparent colors, as well as an onyx style and show a mold line across the equator of the sphere and an injection point on one of the marble’s poles. While it’s possible a young mibster might have pried one of these marbles out of a furniture claw, or broke a ‘Codd Bottle’ to get at the marble inside, these marbles were not intended as children’s toys. These marbles were made in the United States and Europe. There are two ways that this process works. The first one employs a two piece mold that contains several spherical shapes in relief between the two halves. Through the means of a standard glass screw press (like what has been used by the glass industry for over a hundred years), a charge of glass is forced down into the mold cavity, and several marbles are made at once. The mold is opened and the marbles are still attached to a block of glass, much like golf balls on tees. The marbles are knocked off of the post connections that they are attached to and are then put in a annealing oven. Sometimes the post break off points or pontils on these marble were ground in a very rough way. These are referred to by collectors as "bullet mold" marbles. The second method employs a bench mounted press that looks like a big pair of pliers. At the ends of the "plier" arms are a matching set of hemispherical molds. A gather of glass or a heated rod is placed into the jaws of the press and the marble is formed by squeezing the two mold halves together. This leaves a flange around the hemisphere of the marble that must be knocked off. This is the method that is employed to make the few toy marbles that fall into this category. Again, most of the toy examples were made in the former Czech Republic. It is believed that the "Codd" bottle stopper marbles were made using this method also. Hand-Gathered
& Machine-made Marbles
The
first machine-made glass marbles were turned out by Martin F. Christensen
in 1902, immediately prior to his application for a US Patent on the first
glass marble-machine. All the marbles manufactured by The
M.F.
Christensen & Son Company (1905 to 1917) are in this class. The Christensen
Agate Company used this process to manufacture toy marbles from 1925
to 1928, at which time they began using automatic gob feeders. Also, all
the marbles manufactured at The Akro Agate Company and The
Peltier Glass Company before the introduction of automatic glass
feeding component to their manufacturing process sometime prior to 1930. Diagnostic traits of these marbles, usually in the onyx style
are, colored design features which resemble number ‘nines, ‘sixes,’
tails which wrap around the marble in various directions, commas,
‘S’s’ and occasionally elongated
shear-marks. The majority
of hand-gathered machine-made marbles were manufactured for industrial
purposes. Totally
Automated Machine-made Marbles All
glass toy marbles manufactured after around 1930 are the result of
automatic gob feeders and marble-forming machines using twin helically
grooved cylinders. Gob feeders were first pioneered and introduced at The Christensen
Agate Company late in 1927 or early 1928. This technology, developed under
contract with The Hartford Empire Company who held the patents for gob
feeder technology and adapted it to the manufacture of marbles; upon the
closing of The Christensen Agate Company in 1930, these marble making gob
feeder patents were offered to and universally used by all other American
marble works. Once these patents expired in the early to mid 1950’s
German, Japanese and Mexican marble manufacturers adopted this technology.
Some of this technology may have been given to these foreign countries as
part of the post WWII rebuilding effort. On a whole, only a small percentage of these
marbles were manufactured for the children’s toy market. Gob Feeder Variations Totally
Automated Machine-made Marbles
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