Absolutely Marbleous
absolutely MARBLEOUS
As they gather for a regional show, marble collectors are on a roll
NEWS PHOTOS -•- WILLIAM JORDAN
ABOVE:
Don Taylor of Ann Arbor has collected some 50,000 marbles over the years. He specializes in antique marbles, including some made before World War I.
RIGHT:
Marbles are displayed throughout Don Taylor's home in Ann Arbor.
By ANNE VALENTINE MARTINO
NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Don Taylor of Ann Arbor has collected 50,000 marbles over 25 years - while also accumulating at least that many facts about the marble industry.
This makes the joke about people losing their marbles very much off the mark. But when it is told anyway during a visit to Taylor’s home, the 45-year-old collector laughs warmly and loudly.
Seriously, marbles are no joke for Taylor, who makes perhaps $6,000 a year buying and selling them. His collection came from shows and other collectors across the country.
In the living room, some of Taylor’s marbles sit on a “Genie” machine that also serves as a desk. On the floor, dozens of glass jars swirl like rainbows.
A wood shelf displays spectacular marbles.
Among the highlights are a handful of pink opaque marbles made before World War I and a jar of marbles dug from the “dump” of the Akro Agate marble company in West Virginia (today, Taylor is wearing an AKRO AGATE T-shirt). During a quarter century of collecting, Taylor has become an expert on marble history. The Venetians were the first to make marbles, the Germans later did it as a cottage industry, and in recent times, marbles have become a mass-market phenomenon.
Along the way, people have tried to make “reproductions” of antique marbles, Taylor says, which is why he and others formed “Antique Marbles Forever!”
The group is hosting a regional show Saturday, July 22, at the Holiday Inn North Campus in Ann Arbor.
Show organizers hope to set a precedent by allowing only marbles from the ’50s and earlier to be displayed and sold. And organizers plan to smash a reproduction with a hammer every 15 minutes during the show to emphasize their point.
Although Taylor has disdain for those who make marble reproductions and pretend they’re antiques, he doesn’t mind some of the modem marble companies that simply make pretty marbles. Several Mexico firms are doing that and selling their marbles in this country.
These include huge “Orcas” and “Blue Dolphins” - three to four times the size of the older shooters or jumbo marbles, plus oversized marbles called oilys, galaxies, flames, cat eyes, meteors and panthers.
Taylor, who played marbles as a kid at Angell School in Ann Arbor, says marbles enjoyed great popularity in the ’50s but slowed down in the ’60s. Since then, they seem to have picked up speed - although today, he says, marbles must compete for kids’ attention with video games, computers, and movies.
“Antique Marbles Forever!” runs Saturday, July 22, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Holiday Inn North Campus in Ann Arbor. Collectors’ nights are Thursday and Friday at the hotel. For more information, call Taylor at 761-9281. Admission to the show is $2 for adults. Children under 12 enter free with an adult.