Collecting Antique Marbles by Paul Baumann

Author:Paul Baumann
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2011-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Other Individually Made Marbles

END-OF-DAY

End-of-day marbles resemble onionskins except that they have only a single pontil mark. I realize that in the last few years, some people have begun to use the term end-of-day as interchangeable with “English colors” for any brightly colored marble. However, I believe it is better to stay with the original definition of end-of-day as individually made marbles. Of course, we now know that, with a very few possible exceptions, even the single pontil marbles were not made at the “end of the day” for the glass workers’ own kids or for amusement. This was a quaint notion, when we knew so little history that we could imagine glass workers as artists putting in a leisurely day making 50 or 100 marbles. Instead, as detailed in the onionskin section, they made 4,000 to 4,500 small or 700 to 800 large marbles in a backbreaking 10-hour day—a pace they kept up six days a week! After a day like that, few would stick around to make some extra novelty items.

Some of the single pontil, end-of-day marbles were made individually, while others were really end-of-cane items. If, as we now know, only four to six larger onionskins could be cut from a cane before reheating, then a high percentage of larger marbles may appear to have only one pontil. About the only way one can argue that an onionskin-style marble is truly end-of-day is if the end opposite the pontil is completely covered in a color pattern that appears intentional. Then you know that the marble was either made individually or the maker applied extra color to the end before reheating. If, instead, the end is open to the clear glass underneath, the marble is certainly an end-of-cane. Also, the color opposite the pontil should occur as dots, not lines; the presence of even small lines would indicate some pulling at that end. Of course, both types of marbles are much rarer than double-pontil onionskins.

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