Aggies, shooters, mibs, ducks - if you recognize these terms, you're probably either a marble collector or enjoyed playing marble games as a child. Marbles have been around since ancient times and have been found in such places as Egyptian tombs and Pompeiian ruins. Over the centuries, marbles have been made of a variety of materials, from smoothed stones, bone and clay to porcelain and glass.
Marbles made of clay were first made in the U.S. late in the 19th century by the Akron Toy Company. They were previously imported from Germany. Then in 1915, Sam Dyke created a method of clay marble mass production in which a wooden block was carved out to allow six marbles to be made at once. Through this invention, Dyke's factory was able to turn out about a million marbles a day. This made marble production cheaper, and bags of 30 marbles could be sold for one penny. Previously, marbles cost a penny a piece.
Some of the most collectible glass marbles are sulphides, which have interesting figures, flowers, swirls or other images inside them. Most early forms of these of marbles were made in Victorian-era Germany, but in the 1990s, an unusually large amount of them hit the American market with different claims of provenance. None of the figures in these newly discovered marbles had ever been documented before. A number of them contained two figures, called "doubles," but only a handful of authentic doubles are known to exist. Therefore, some of these "rare" pieces were selling for thousands of dollars each - a good incentive for fakers.
Suspicions of authenticity are always raised when too many "undiscovered" antiques of a certain type suddenly flood the market, so authentication tests were done on some of these marbles. Lab results indicated that the marbles contained a higher amount of sodium than known antique sulphides, making them more prone to damage and breakage. Modern reproductions, fakes and fantasy glassware of all types can contain higher levels of sodium because this formula is cheaper and allows less skilled glassworkers more time to work with the material.
So how can you know if a sulphide marble is modern without a lab test? This is where a 10x loupe is your best friend. Magnification will show a difference in the surface of the marble. The surface of an antique marble should have irregular pitting and straight thin lines, whereas the surface of a newer marble will have wavy, curved or swirly black lines. Also, the majority of antique sulphides contained only one figure, so sulphides with more than one figure should undergo further authentication. If the figure looks fuzzy or the marble appears cloudy, it's a modern piece.
Since early marbles were handmade, new collectors sometimes think that a pontil mark is a clear indicator of an antique marble; however, some contemporary artisans still make collectible marbles by hand, individually, and have throughout the decades. So while a pontil mark may be a first step, it's definitely not a single determining factor as to age. Also, the questionable sulphide marbles discussed above have rougher pontils that are opaque and have straight, even lines like brush strokes, whereas pontils on antique marbles are smooth and clear.
Because bags of marbles in their original packaging can be very attractive to cross-genre collectors, some forgers are even producing new labels and packaging. While some of these are reproduced, most are fantasy labels that never existed. These can feature subjects like old-time celebrities, black memorabilia, cartoon characters and a wide range of other subjects, thus appealing to a market of collectors who are not as much interested in the marbles as they are in the label with the subject they collect. One way to easily recognize a new paper label is by its colors - original vintage labels only had one or two colors, so if you see more than that, it's probably modern. Plastic bags that look bright and new probably are new. Older bags are usually somewhat cloudy from age. A little common sense can also go a long way - a Mid-Century plastic bag with a label featuring a character or personality from an earlier time period doesn't make sense. Earlier bags were usually mesh, not plastic. Generally speaking, any part of the packaging, whether it's construction, material, or label issues (including misspellings and ragged letter edges), that isn't in sync with its purported time period is a poorly crafted modern attempt to fool unsuspecting buyers.

Photos are property of the author.

At A Glance
Signs of a modern marble:
1. Wavy black surface lines
2. More than one figure in a sulphide - caution
3. Cloudy, fuzzy figures in sulphides
4. Rough, opaque pontil
5. Labels with more than two colors

Reference books, websites and collecting groups are the best ways to keep from being fooled by fakes. Here are a few: “Marbles Identification and Price Guide” by Robert Block; “Sulphide Marbles” by Stanley A. Block; “Collecting Antique Marbles” by Paul Baumann; Marble Collectors Society of America (www.marblecollecting.com).