Mason Marbles. A Story For Ya!

[diginit]

A few friends of mine were hunting ginseng off the side of a very steep country road (used to be a main road in NC) Well, they found some remnants of an old large truck. Rims, Tires, etc. They got to looking around and found a ton of old Glass marbles, After some research they found that the truck was carrying mason jar marbles to a mason jar plant located in Bristol Tn. It wrecked in the 1930s and was recovered for the most part. But alot of the marbles and misc body parts from the truck were left. They have recovered several buckets full of these and gave me some.
Another bit of history for my collection. []

 

[RED Matthews]

Hi diginit, Interesting marbles. Have you ever found out about the application of the marbles at a mason jar plant? I have visited three marble manufacturing operations but I can hardly think these marbles were for remelt at a jar factory. I note that the marbles seem to have a mold seam around them. The center one on the right seems to have a feeder dip or something different on the seam. Thanks for showing them to us. If you find out any thing else about them please let me know. RED Matthews

 

[swizzle]

Are any of them embossed with the mason pat date on them? [] J/K, that'd be cool if they were though. What do you think they were used for? Spray paint cans maybe? Swiz

 

[diginit]

I think the seam you were speaking of is a reflection from the concrete. my cellphone takes some pretty lousy pics. These have no seams, Just alot of melt lines all over them. The truck was on it's way to the factory in Bristol Tn. Not sure where it beginning location was. These were supposed to be 1930's mason jars, but got lost on the way.

 

[jskirk]

I think those a re industrial Glass balls or marbles which were made for easy transportation to glass factories to make into what ever, Owens made tons of them ithink.........Just some observations from a 12 year collector of marbles........Jay

 

[madman]

great story! nice!

 

[mdavenport]

Since I'm originally from Bristol, TN I thought this was a fantastic story. A friend of mine used to work for Ball Glass Container here in Asheville back in the 1980s. He said that these glass beads/marbles were commonly used in the industry as "remelt." Apparently it requires much more energy and resources to manufacture glass from raw materials. Plants that produce glass products (e.g. windshields, specialty plate glass) Remelt pellets were/are used since they made the process easier and they offered the added benefit of being able to use the specific type/color of glass that was desired. He says that most glass bottle manufacturing uses a continuous process that requires the use of an on-site furnace. The lack of a sufficient local fuel source (usually natural gas) might also require that the glass be manufactured somewhere else and remelted at the local plant.

I'm sure that most of you folks here already knew this, but I thought it was fascinating. Thanks again for sharing the story.

 

[whiskeyman]

Very interesting story. I heard a similar story a few years ago about a truckload of marbles wrecking on US Hwy 421 well above S.Holston Lake. Never bothered to check it out.

MIKE...I didn't know that about the "remelts." thanks.

I've seen these same marbles occasionally at the local fleas and even picked up a few along the R/R trax in Johnson City a few years back.

 

[diginit]

Thanks for all the information. The country road used to be the main road connecting Bristol and Boone NC. Go find some glass!

Here's a slightly better pic.