Reviews (1)

Great Marble Book!
Easier to use than some of the other marble "standards." It is well organized and the values, based on the condition of the marble, arewith the marbles. Some of the other books have you constantly flipping fromback to front to find a value. The different types of antique handmademarbles are logically grouped for the most part and the machine mademarbles are divided by manufacturer.There is even a section with examplesfrom contemporary marble artists. My one complaint would be that thereshould be an index to make finding of the great many types of machine mademarbles easier. Until something better comes along, I carry this with me toauctions, flea markets, antique shows or anywhere else I think there mightbe an opportunity to buy, sell or trade marbles. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Antiques & Collectibles    2. Antiques / Collectibles    3. Antiques/Collectibles    4. Catalogs    5. Collectors and collecting    6. Marbles (Game objects)    7. Reference - Price Guides    8. Toys    9. Antiques & collectables: ceramics & glass    10. Antiques & collectables: toys, games & models   

Subjects:  1. Antiques & Collectibles    2. Antiques/Collectibles    3. Art glass    4. Collectors and collecting    5. Crafts / Hobbies    6. Glass & Glassware    7. Marbles (Game objects)    8. United States    9. Antiques & Collectables    10. Ceramic arts, pottery, glass   

Reviews (4)

lovvvvvvvvvvvveddddddddddddd it
i lovedthis book because it gave you funny expample of how to play i also loved it because it gave you marbles that you can play with.
Marble Mania is catching!
Marble Mania has fine photographs of every imaginable marble from pebbles found alongside streams to the Industrial Revolution in Germany & Austria. Here the cutting of agate cubes & polishing them into marbles for export all over the world became a huge cottage industry. You have tosee the beauty of all the clay, pottery, crockery, china & porcelainglobes. It was fun to read this big book. Found myself chatting at thelocal recycle shop about the blue canning jars in their windows filled withmarbles. Eyeing them eagerly, with a little more knowledge & a few morenames.

An "Industry Standard"
I bought this book for my husband (from Amazon) for Xmas.Not only is the book very beautiful, but he has become an expert in his own right.With a year-2000 interest in things retro, marblesare enjoying a boom.We nowhave jars of them everywhere, looking great and, according to this greatbook, appreciating in value as we watch.With the help of the pricingguides we discovered that we already owned some very valuable marbles, andhave since acquired more.In fact, the book paid for itself about 10minutes after we got it, with the discovery of an unrecognized treasure. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Antiques & Collectibles    2. Antiques / Collectibles    3. Antiques/Collectibles    4. Catalogs    5. Collectors and collecting    6. General    7. Glass & Glassware    8. Glass Arts And Crafts    9. Marbles (Game objects)    10. Reference - General    11. Toy Arts And Crafts    12. Toys    13. Antiques & Collectables    14. Other manufacturing technologies   

Reviews (1)

Great close-ups of the marbles!
There are several things that make this book a stand-out. The first is the basic information about the types of marbles (antique, machine-made, modern) and the makers of the marbles. If you're looking for extensive historical information, this may not be the book for you. But if you collect marbles and are interested in good, basic information as well as tons of photos (most enlarged so you can see every detail) of a wide variety of marbles, this book fills the bill. While I'm no marble expert, I learned a grat deal from reading this one! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Antiques / Collectibles    2. Games    3. Games/Puzzles    4. Glass & Glassware    5. Glass sculpture    6. History    7. Indoor Games    8. Marbles (Game)    9. Reference    10. Toys    11. Antiques & Collectables    12. Sports & Outdoor Recreation    13. Toys, teddy bears & dolls   

Reviews (4)

EXCELLENT REFERANCE BOOK
This is an excellent referance book for early hand made German and American marbles.It is well illistrated and easy to follow. It is not meant for marbles manufactured after the late 1920's.A must have for marble collectors.

Marble Identification
I was disappointed not only in the size of this price and identification guide for marbles, but also in the marbles that were covered.I was looking for a guide that would help me identify older, but more common marbles, not so many pages on sulphides with characters encased and rare marbles.

Not great for identification.
This book has beautiful pictures and is a nice introduction into marble collecting.However, it is not very helpful in identifying your marbles.There are pictures of different manufacture's marbles but enough information to teach you how to tell them apart yourself.
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Subjects:  1. Antiques & Collectibles    2. Antiques / Collectibles    3. Antiques/Collectibles    4. Collectors and collecting    5. Glass & Glassware    6. Marbles (Game)    7. Porcelain & China    8. Reference - Price Guides    9. Toys   

Reviews (1)

GOOD REFERANCE MATERIAL
I is a good reference book for marbles.A bit dis-jointed and hard to follow.Pictures are not as clear as some other referance material but book should be in a marble collectors library. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Antiques    2. Antiques & Collectibles    3. Antiques / Collectibles    4. Antiques/Collectibles    5. Toys    6. Antiques & collectables: ceramics & glass    7. Antiques & collectables: toys, games & models    8. Reference works   

Reviews (2)

Marbles Illustrated by Robert Block
Book is totally disorganized.Beautiful pictures, but no way of researching values.The price list is in the back organized by lot no & auction no.NO reference to the illustration of the marbles in the front of the book, no way to look it up.Starts out promising, then becomes a total jumble.Totally impossible to locate anything.Too time consuming, and then still no resolve.

Great Marble Ilustrations, but try and find the description!
This book has fabulous marble illustrations, but absolutely no cross-referencing so a user can look up the description of the marble pictured. The author pre-supposes you are an expert and know what marblemaker and type you are looking for. Illustrations are grouped together inone section of the book and each is identified only by the auction numberand lot number it came from. Unfortunately, the descriptions of thesemarbles are not in the same order. Descriptions are ordered by marblemanufacturer and type of marble.Even then, the auction numbers within thetypes are random.The book is only useful if you know what kind of marbleyou have and want to see what some similar marbles by the same manufacturersold for. It bogles the imagination to understand why any sensible editorwould not cross index this publication, so a person finding a marble theylike in the illustrations, can then go read the description. It could takeyou a week to find the matching description.The sad thing is, that datawas readily available to the author and the illustrations could have beenkeyed in a day! Worst example of editorship I have ever seen! Totallyclueless! They never thought about, or cared, how a person might try to usethe book. Save your money!I wish I had! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Antiques & Collectibles    2. Antiques/Collectibles    3. General    4. Marbles (Game objects)    5. Prices    6. Sports & Recreation    7. Toys    8. Antiques & Collectables    9. Other manufacturing technologies   

Reviews (2)

Holey COW!!
This is my great great Grandfather's Marble Company! I had no idea folks were collecting his marbles.
EXCELLENT REFERANCE BOOK
All illustrations are exceptional and discriptions perfect. A must have for marble collectors. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Antiques & Collectibles    2. Antiques/Collectibles    3. Christensen Agate Company    4. Collectors and collecting    5. General    6. Marbles (Game)    7. Sports & Recreation    8. Antiques & collectables: toys, games & models   

Reviews (6)

Good marble identification book
Excellent book for identification of marble types and values, and for general history of marble manufacture and select manufacturers.Grist details characteristics of marbles to identify the manufacturing method and general production dates, but you cannot identify marbles to manufacturer or more specific production dates by this book.Excellent pictures and selection of marbles. Overall, this is a good quality marble book.

Really Great Book on Marbles
As a serious marble collector, I think this book is invaluable.It's informative and very well put together.I believe it could also work well for non-marble collectors.Marbles are pretty universally fascinating and this book can inform anyone about the worth and characteristics of marbles.

Second Edition of a Beautiful Volume on Marbles !
This second edition is updated for 2,000.190 pages with hundreds of large, full color, sharp photos.Major topics include: Who Can You Trust?, Manufacturers, Antique and Machine Mades, Rarities, Marble Boxes, ChristmasCards, Clubs, Paper Items, etc, etc.A great reference for marble fans. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Antiques    2. Antiques & Collectibles    3. Antiques / Collectibles    4. Antiques/Collectibles    5. Glass & Glassware    6. Reference - General    7. Reference - Price Guides    8. Toy Arts And Crafts    9. Toys   

Reviews (1)

Marble ID
Marble identification is complicated.This book has excellent photos to assist in identification.The narrative pertaining to each type of marble is informative, quick, and to the point.This is a book to be used. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Antiques & Collectibles    2. Antiques/Collectibles    3. Glass & Glassware   

Reviews (4)

Should have stopped at one book
While Block's first coffee table book on the subject of contemporary marbles was a fine piece of work, his second book is not, and anybody who says it is is either blind or crazy or a homer.Marble collectors love to see nice pictures of beautiful marbles, and while there are indeed LOTS of marble pictures in this book to look at, the vast majority of them are of such poor quality that it actually becomes a painful process to keep flipping the pages to see more of them.But that's not the worst part of the book.More egregious than the photography is the organization of the book.It is a haphazard mess of marbles, with no clear sense of how they are grouped and why.It actually starts out as if it's going somewhere, but then completely falls apart, as if the author was being whipped while on a chain gang in order to get the book finished by some crazy deadline.It ended up being maddening to flip through, since marbles were thrown together in bizarre ways that just leave you frustrated.
Outstanding, Expertly Written and Illustrated Volume-A Must Have!
This book is clearly one of only two that specialize in the hot collectible of contemporary marbles. Mark Block is the reknown and acknowledged expert in the field. This is easily seen in the in-depth research he has done, the cooperation he received from the Corning Museum of Glass, and all of the beautiful works that were incorporated into this exciting volume. I only hope that future books by Mark Block will meet or exceed his own expectations. If they do, the glass community will be all the better for it. He is truly Mr. Ambassador when it comes to contemporary marbles and related art glass.

Felon writes book what's wrong with Schiffer
For those of you who aren't aware Mark Block was convicted of a felony for screwing around with marble artist creations.He was also charged with faking marks on marbles to increase value although these were dropped as part of a plea deal.So my question is what publisher in their right mind releases a book supposedly by an expert who has a felony conviction specifically related to the subject he is an expert in?Obviously not a very conscientious publisher.Let me be the first to publicly state that I will boycott all Schiffer books until they get this criminal off their roster-- and no this doesn't apply to the rest of the Blocks.For those of you who want to support criminal behavior and want to buy this book beware the pictures aren't good, each one has a reflection on it, and the marbles in the book are certainly not first quality.By the way Mark, how many of the marbles in the book that were given as "donations" actually were "mistakenly" sold by you or your brother?Oh, I'm sorry you can't sell marbles - that's against your probation isn't it?
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Subjects:  1. Antiques & Collectibles    2. Antiques/Collectibles    3. Art glass    4. Collectors and collecting    5. General    6. Glass & Glassware    7. Marbles (Game objects)    8. Sports & Recreation    9. United States   

Reviews (4)

Not very clear!
This book contains 10 ideas for games which seem to be what every child would enjoy. The problem is that most of the figures used in the book to give construction details leave a lot to be desired. Most of the photos are black and white and difficult to see any detail. The drawings are also in black and white and are also very difficault to follow.

OK for ideas, but not for projects
I was disappointed as well. I expected projects I could build, but nothingstruck me as worth the time. The basic ideas are OK, marble rollers, and soon. But I would only use this stuff as a departure point for my owndesigns.

Making Marble-Action Games, Gadgets, Mazes & Contraptions
This book was a terrible disappointment. I wanted to give it no stars but that didn't seem to be an option. For most of these gadgets he begins the chapter by explaining that they don't actually work very well, they tend tojam and clog up requiring a certain amount of tilting and tapping to clearthe device. Many of the mazes and such are non-functional - they are thereto make the contraption look complicated. It's clear to me from looking atit that the dice substitute will never generate a 1, 2, or 6, and the thingis definitely not uniform like dice would be. The spirit of Rube Goldbergis represented by contraptions that do a lot but accomplish very little.The mechanisms in this book just don't do anything. I didn't find a singlesatisfying project in here and felt like it was a waste of twenty bucks.And what are metric conversion tables doing in here? An embarrassment ifyou ask me. If you like this kind of stuff get Making Wooden MechanicalModels by Alan and Gill Bridgewater. It is far superior. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Crafts / Hobbies    2. Hobbies/Crafts    3. Marbles (Game)    4. Maze puzzles    5. Toymaking - General    6. Wood Toys    7. Wooden boxes    8. Wooden toy making    9. Toys, teddy bears & dolls    10. Woodworking   

Reviews (2)

Collector's delight
As the wife of a train collector, I found this book very familiar territory -- but even better. Baumann's grasp of history, archeology, industrial technique and the esthetic of marble art is wonderful. This wasa great read (and look--the color plates are a real asset), as well as anexcellent reference.

Everything You Want To Know About Marbles.
176 pages with 1,200 color pictures and many black and white plates.This book really provides a comprehensive history of marbles including how toclassify and collect them.Details on clay and crockery, china, swirls,solids, opaques and sulphides.Transition and machine-mades, reproductionsand toys are discussed.A comprehensive price guide is included, and amarble club listing.Add this book to your collection if you're a newmarble collector or a long time collector.A great reference source. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Antiques & Collectibles    2. Antiques / Collectibles    3. Antiques/Collectibles    4. Collectors and collecting    5. General    6. Glass & Glassware    7. Marbles (Game objects)    8. Technical & Manufacturing Trades    9. Toys    10. Antiques & collectables: toys, games & models    11. Ceramic arts, pottery, glass    12. Reference works   

Subjects:  1. Art    2. Art & Art Instruction    3. Collections, Catalogs, Exhibitions - Private    4. Collectors and collecting    5. General    6. Great Britain    7. History    8. Marble sculpture, Classical    9. Private collections    10. Sculpture    11. Art / General   

Features

• Illustrated

Reviews (1)

The only book on the subject, and a good one.
How many times have you seen one of those big old French marble clocks for sale at auction or in a shop? Were you intrigued by the craftsmanship,curious about the history, or just impressed by the size? Wonder no more,now that Nicolas Thorpe has written this useful guide to these relics of apast age.Read more

Subjects:  1. Antiques & Collectibles    2. Antiques / Collectibles    3. Antiques/Collectibles    4. Clocks & Watches    5. Clocks and watches    6. Collectors and collecting    7. France    8. History    9. Technical & Manufacturing Trades    10. Antique clocks & watches    11. Antiques & Collectibles / Clocks & Watches    12. Clocks & chronometers   

Subjects:  1. Collectors and collecting    2. Marbles (Game)   

Subjects:  1. Sports & Recreation    2. Antiques / Collectibles    3. Toys    4. General    5. Reference - Price Guides    6. Antiques & collectables: ceramics & glass    7. Antiques & collectables: toys, games & models    8. Antiques/Collectibles    9. Glass & Glassware    10. Antiques & Collectibles   

Subjects:  1. Antiques & Collectibles    2. Antiques/Collectibles    3. Glass & Glassware    4. Antiques & collectables: ceramics & glass    5. Antiques & collectables: toys, games & models   

Reviews (1)

Pretty, but incomplete
From the number of pages, I didn't expect this to be a book that would be very comprehensive.Yet even as a basic start I was disappointed.The entire book is a series of color plates, each showing many marbles. These photos are truly beautiful and show a nice range of marbles.However, I found it of little use in identifying marbles I had.It was much to incomplete.The book could have been grouped by manufacturer, which would have helped some.There is a price guide for each plate in the back of the book.However, there is no indication for what size marble the price applies, and as marble collectors know, size matters.For some plates only ranges were given for all the marbles pictured, instead of giving individual prices.These ranges were wide enough to not be of much help when trying to appraise a marble's value. The photos have little text to go with them, which would have been helpful to help novices learn the differences between types of marbles.Buy it for the pretty pictures, but don't expect much from it. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Antiques & Collectibles    2. Antiques / Collectibles    3. Antiques/Collectibles    4. Catalogs    5. Collectors and collecting    6. General    7. Glass & Glassware    8. Marbles (Game objects)    9. Reference - Price Guides    10. Toys    11. United States    12. Antiques & Collectables    13. Sports & Outdoor Recreation   

Reviews (1)

What trouble?
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.Read more

Subjects:  1. Action & Adventure - General    2. Brothers    3. Children's Books/Ages 9-12 Fiction    4. Children: Grades 3-4    5. Collectors and collecting    6. Family - Siblings    7. Fiction    8. Juvenile Fiction    9. Marbles (Game objects)    10. Moneymaking projects    11. Juvenile Fiction / Family / Siblings