Marquee Marble Auctions

A visit to the American Toy Marble Museum is a must see if you're in the Akron, Ohio area. With features highlighting the likes of Samuel Dyke, James Harvey Leighton, and Martin Frederick Christensen, you'll find Akron Marbles.com to be very informative and a must stop no matter where you are. They also offer a documented history of numerous marble manufacturers and marble machine patents. You'll be hard pressed to find a better glossary of terms that they define at their site, a well detailed identification for pontil types, and even a movie of actual marbles being made at the the Jabo factory site in Reno, Ohio during the summer of 2003. Check it out, tell 'em Mike at Marquee Marble Auctions sent ya......

How did you meet Michael Cohill and what were the circumstances surrounding your decision to team up and pursue similar interests?

I met Michael at a dinner party held at a mutual friends house. A few of my friends were working for Michael at his toy company (Group ID8) and were also doing field archaeology studies with me at the University of Akron. When I met Michael, the first thing he did was hand me a marble - my friends all refered to him as the 'marble man'. Later in the evening we had a chance to talk about toy marbles and Akron's involvement in this little known (at the time) history. I was hooked from that day. Less then a week later we were scratching around town for evidence of toy marble making.

Where is the American Toy and Marble Museum located, how long has it been open, and what are it's hours of operation?

The American Toy Marble Museum is located at the historic Lock 3 Park in central downtown Akron. Our museum is part of a city financed and owned facility that also houses several other non-profit local entities that are involved with Akron history. The museum opened in the summer of 2003. Currently, the museum will be open most days between Thanksgiving and New Years from around noon to early evening. After that point by appointment only. Later in the spring regular hours will start up again.

Your involvement with the American Toy Marble Museum goes back a dozen years or so, how difficult was it to bring all the principles together and get this project off the ground?

Michael Cohill was the singular force that made it happen in the very beginning. He realized the importance of this rich history and wanted to share it with the community.Support was always offered from other like-minded institutions such as the Summit County Historical Society, the University of Akron Archives, The Summit County Public Library, and the City of Akron proper.

The museum was a physical entity that was housed at a few different locations around town (Akron) since the early 1990's. In the late 90's, the displays were put in storage in hopes that we would find a more permanent home. In the summer of 2003, the museum would come alive again with the kind generous support of the City of Akron.

What can we expect to see and experience upon a tour of the museum?

We have several display cases devoted to ceramic marbles, handmade glass marbles, and machine made glass marbles - these exhibits focus on the accomplishments of Sam Dyke, James Harvey Leighton, and Martin Frederick Christensen respectively. There are marbles, marble making hand tools, machine parts, patents, and lots of nice photo panels. There is a display case with Akron related marble tournament ephemera including trophys and medals. We also have two regulation marble playing rings - one inside and a clay one outside (summer only).

The museum space also holds artifacts from the Lighter then Air Society (blimps and airship history), the Summit County Historical Society, The TV Dinner Club (think cool 40's 50's and 60's retro television and toy related stuff). There are displays on locally produced glass and stoneware, childresn's books (Sallfield Publishing), rubber toys, tire related ephemera form Goodyear, Firestone, BF Goodrich, and Seiberling Rubber, and even music - Devo, The Pretenders, The Waitresses, etc. Basically if it has to do with the city of Akron - it's in there!

How where you able to acquire the marbles and put together the exhibits in the museum and
generally speaking, how many, and of what kind of marbles are on display in the museum?

The marbles were either acquired by Michael and I on the open market or they were found on one of our many archaeological investigations. The 'rest' of the material came from hours of researching at many local libraries and archives. All of the marbles on display are vintage besides a small case devoted to marbles made by Jabo in Reno, Ohio. The vintage marbles include stoneware, clay, handmade glass, and machine made glass.

How much fun have you had digging through the old marble factory sites in pursuit of artifacts?

I’ve had a blast! The best part about excavating is when the property owners are interested in what you are doing and actually want to help me. I love getting adults and kids of all ages interested in the subject.

It must be pretty exciting finding hidden treasures at the old marble sites, what have been some of your more interesting finds?

The interesting finds are always the things that you don’t expect; like finding strange glass colors / combinations and or experimental pieces. In regards to complete glass marbles, they are actually hard to come by at the older factories where hand gathering was the only method used; so I guess that would make any complete glass marble an interesting find. With the stoneware and ceramic marbles, some of the best finds consisted of pieces of elaborately hand-decorated marbles. Finding the fragments on-site enables marble enthusiast to now attribute certain ceramic marbles to specific companies.

What haven't you found that you might of expected to see? For example I understand you didn't find any red glass shards or cullet at the old MF Christensen plant which suggests MFC didn't make any red slags.

The red glass is indeed a good example of what wasn’t found. I didn’t expect to find any either but I know that a lot of collectors out there would swear that a red onyx with a ‘nine’ pattern is a MFC marble. Mr. Christensen had a set palette and didn’t deviate from it. The company records and surviving advertising material support the point as well. I would say for all of the different factories that I have studies; 99.9% of what was found in the archaeological record was supported with other evidence from the historic record in patents, advertisements, newspaper stories, oral histories, etc.

Where and how did you begin your "paper" research on Marbles and the Akron area manufacturers in particular?

The library - between Michael and myself, we have probably read every available Akron newspaper on microfilm from the 1880's up to about 1930.

With so many manufacturers, why was Akron, Ohio such a hotbed for marble making? Were most of the marbles being made out of clay?

Location, luck, and the entrepreneurial spirit! Akron was the clay products capital of the world in the late 19^th century. There were great sources of clay all around town just waiting to be dug up and made into something. Sam Dyke comes along and has an idea to mass produce and directly market a product to children: marbles. Viewing children as consumer’s was a foreign idea at this time. Sure kids bought candy and the like- but the majority of toys on the market in the 1880’s could only be afforded by the wealthiest of children. Sam brought an item to market that almost any child could purchase with his or her own money. The idea worked…this is the luck part! Because the idea was so successful, other people wanted in on the action – this fostered competition which led to increased production and product diversification. The marble makers had to push the envelope by making not just clay commies, but also elaborately glazed ceramic marbles, handmade glass marbles from canes and simple hand gathering, stone marbles from a mill, and eventually machine made glass marbles. All of the ways known and patented to create a sphere out of clay or glass basically originated out of Akron, Ohio. That is why Ohio is such a marble hotbed. I would bet a million dollars that Ohio has produced way more marbles then West Virginia – period! It is only out of recent memory that the Mountain state is given this thunder; all of the old Ohio marble makers have taken their stories to the grave with them – all of the great ones dieing before the West Virginia industry even really took off. You gotta love history!

Here's some pics of marbles being made at Jabo. Visit Akron Marbles.com for a cool video taken of the process.

Thank you Brian for your generosity of time and efforts in putting together this feature. Having only contacted Brian about a week ago about participating, he went above and beyond to help us out. Folks, give Brian and Akron Marbles a visit, you'll be very glad you did!