No comments about The collectors encyclopedia of antique marbles.

No comments about Everett Grist's Big Book of Marbles Second Edition.

No comments about The Learned Collector: Mythological Statuettes and Classical Taste in Late Antique Gaul.

2 comments about Marbles Beyond Glass.

1. Collecting the full spectrum of non-glass marbles is collecting the history of toy marbles. It should have been impossible to produce a book on non-glass marbles without mentioning details of their history and production, but this has now been accomplished, unfortunately.
   The hundreds of individual marble pictures vary greatly in interest. Many are redundant and the inferior pictures detract from the few excellent examples illustrated.
   Antique agate marbles are interspersed with modern mineral marbles.There is very little or nothing mentioned of wooden, hollow brass, limestone, alabaster, stoneware, sewer-tile or ivory toy marbles.
   Any ceramic marble coated with a colored glaze is called a "bennington", which is not helpful.
   There is no mention of the largest US agate marble factory which cut and ground Mexican onyx in the 1920s and 1930 in Los Angeles, California.
   No contemporary marble makers are named, although their marbles are illustrated profusely.
   No distinction is made between earthen ware, red ware, stone ware (very old German as well as 100 year old Akron), yellow ware (generally from the US) white ware or porcelain (usually German).
   Any marble with surface lines is arbitrarily called "line pottery" or "line crockery" or "lined china".
   Unfortunately, since rarity does not greatly influence price (value) amongst many ordinary ceramic toy marbles, it appears there was no incentive for the author to accurately categorize them.
   I'm not looking for a treatise on ceramics, but at a list price of $50, some attempt should have been made to progress from the folksy and sloppy jargon of the past to well established classification used by ceramic collectors. Such impaired communication inhibits progress; ceramic marble collectors will have to wait for a better book, which is long overdue.



2. This book is mostly a collection of pictures of individual marbles, seven to a page, supposedly marketed as an identification and price guide. It turns out to be a terrible waste of time and money for everyone.
   Promulgation of confusing and inaccurate terminology should have ceased long ago, with the publication of more factual marble books such as Gartley and Carskadden's "Colonial Period and Early 18th Century Children's Toy Marbles" and Paul Baumann's "Collecting Antique Marbles".
   There is a minimum of text, probably because of a scarcity of knowledge on the author's part. An obvious lack of appreciation of the origins and manufacturing techniques of these marbles creates some major errors and omissions. For example, a variety of distinctly different marbles are lumped together as either "lined pottery" or "lined crockery" or both. Painted clay marbles, variegated porcelain marbles as well as decorated American stoneware marbles are all called "lined pottery". The same photograph is sometimes repeatedly used with a different caption. The term "sponge ware" is used so frequently and inaccurately as to be meaningless. No mention is made of the ubiquitous limestone marble, nor the uncommon marble cut and ground from red veined marble, which probably gave toy marbles their name. No distinction is made between modern machine ground, semi-precious stone marbles, (cheaper by the pound at rock shops) and expensive hand cut German agates from the 19th century. We don't need seven individual pictures of blue "Bennington" marbles (a misnomer by the way) on a single page! Cane handles are lumped together with distinctly different painted china marbles, and the artists responsible for modern painted china marbles are not acknowledged. There is not a single reference to any of the numerous and often inaccurate statements, and the short bibliography is useless. A lack of an index is not surprising, as I doubt the author could ever come up with one, given the disorganization of the book. This is a book any experienced collector would find useless and to which no new collector should ever be exposed.

No comments about Collecting Antique Marbles.

No comments about The Encyclopedia of MARBLE'S Knives & Sporting Collectibles.

No comments about Marbles as historical artifacts.

No comments about Price Guide to Collecting Antique Marbles.

2 comments about Tommy Trouble and the Magic Marble.

1. This is an enjoyable easy chapter book, ideal for a second grader. The AR level is 2.6. Students with a younger sibling will particularly relate to the situations with Tommy and his younger brother Bradley.



2. Tommy and his little brother want to buy a big special marble from a tough kid down the street. But first, they need to find out how to get the money - without trying to sell mom's prize roses! His brother and he find a snake and try to make a trade with that. Several episodes fill the hunt to get such an exciting marble. Each episode is its own chapter and seems to end with Tommy getting into trouble.

   A nice introduction to chapter books, because the chapters are kept short. Furthermore, kids can relate to Tommy's adventures because the logic he uses is common for 9 year olds. This book is a slight departure from Fletcher's usual intermediate novels but is none the less enjoyable.

   Why 4 stars?:
   I liked this book from a teacher's standpoint because of its value as an introductory chapter book and realistic characters (something found in all of Fletcher's books), however, I didn't find the story to be very interesting. This could keep kids from continuing in it and getting a negative feeling about chapter books. Still, most children will still enjoy it and so it does belong in a classroom. It is already in mine.

No comments about Marble Collectors Society of America Price Guide 85.