Stone Marble?

[peejrey]

This may be a silly question but While digging through a neighbor's bottles I came across some marbles, A rough cobalt blue one, and some other multi colored ones but i also saw a stone one. It's the size of a shooter. She said they were her husbands when he was a kid, she gave them all to me. Anybody know if there is such thing as a stone marble, I'll post a pic of them soon.
Thanks for the info..
-P.J.

 

[Staunton Dan]

Yes, there are such things as stone marbles. I find them all of the time in sites dating to the turn of the last century and before. If he played with them as a kid either he is really old or they were handed down to him. Here's a few that I have dug. Not worth much but fun to dig.

 

[RED Matthews]

Well marble people, I will have to dig some of mine out. I have my Grandfathers little wooden box that has a brass hook and there are his old stone marbles in the box. He gave them to me when I was a kid, and of course I kept them, but never really played with them.
My parents moved to Rochester in 1940 and then there were other neighbors to play marbles with, and I did, but the stone ones stayed here at the farm. They are still here.
RED Matthews

 

[glass man]

WOW WOULD LOVE TO SEE THEM RED! ANY IDEA HOW OLD THEY ARE? JAMIE

 

[JOETHECROW]

Scuse me please for asking, but when you guys use the term "Stone" are you referring to actual stone,...or stoneware clay?

 

[Staunton Dan]

Joe, the term stone is loosely used. They are actually china marbles or clay. The unfired ones are like bisque dolls. You may find them painted or unpainted. The fired ones have a glaze. Some are fired twice and are hand painted between firings. At least this is my understanding. I am no expert by any means but I think that the above is accurate.

 

[#1twin]

PJ, This is a picture of the ones I have dug and found over the last ten yrs of bottle digging. As Joe pointed out, I too, have always referred to them as clay marbles also. There are a few Bennington's in there also. Brown and blues. As you can see the clays range in a lot of different sizes and colors of brown, red, tan, and white. Hope this helps, Marvin

 

[Clam]

Marbles from the beginning have been made of stone. Almost every culture in history has used marbles as game pieces or toys by themselves and the first ones were most likely stones found in river beds or beaches that were formed into spheres by natural processes. These first marbles could have been made of any type of stone or other type of material but when marbles began to be produced for the retail market in the 15th centuary they were made of alabaster or sandstone but they realized that these did not last very long so after trying many different types of stone the winner for the first mass produced marble was limestone it was soft enough to grind in a short period of time but hard enough to last as a toy. Limestone marbles are the most common type of marble we find in 18th centuary pits and alot of guys think they are not very appealing but the truth is that they come in a wide varity of colors and when polished alot of them have bands of manganese in them which make them quite beautiful. Through the ages marbles were made from pretty much every kind of rock or mineral there is but only a few were semi produced like real marble, granite, bloodstone, quartz. One of the most beautiful was a tigereye which was a golden quartz with linear inclusions of asbestos that had a blue color to them. So when you find a marble that you think is stone it will probably be a limestone, I will post a pic of some of the limestone marble I have on here.......Greg

 

[JOETHECROW]

Clam,...and everyone else,...thanks for the interesting history lesson, I appreciate learning this information.