by Tim Harry

Created on: December 27, 2009

Terms like Oilie, Toothpaste or China, may transport a listener back to their childhood, when on hands and knees a friendly game of marbles was played. For many marbles are purely a children’s toy, to others though marbles are highly collectible objects, with an estimated 450 million people actively collecting them.

Collectors of marbles though are faced with the problem of how to display their marble collection. Marbles are after all spherical, and unlike postcards or stamps do not sit well in an album. For the serious collector marbles need to be on display, and whilst this is possible if they are kept in the string bags from which the cheaper varieties are sold, it is hardly the best method to show off marbles at their best.

The spherical nature of marbles is the basic issue that has to be overcome to display the collectibles, and as such a number of firms now design products to assist. There are four main products that deal with the simple problem of keeping marbles in position. At the cheapest end of products are plastic display rings, with acrylic display rings slightly more expensive. Rings though do have the problem though of only really being suitable for small marbles, mainly due to the thickness of the ring. For larger marbles there are though also dimple blocks and reversible cones. These latter two products are better thought of by the marble collector, as they certainly look better. The reversible cones are certainly not cheap but they do allow for a more imaginative marble display.

Being able to keep marbles stills ensures that marbles can be shown off in normal display cabinets. The size of marbles though often means that standard display cabinets do not make best use of the space available. There are though some firms now making specially designed marble display cabinets, normally with velvet or similar interiors. These marble display cabinets can be upright or laid flat ones. There are though also marble display cabinets that also act as coffee tables, and so marbles can be shown off whilst also serving a secondary purpose. Additionally there are also small domes that can sit on mantle pieces and show off a dozen or more marbles in multiple layers.

Displaying marbles can also cross over into the realm of storage and movement. There are cheap acrylic storage cases that house a single marble in a compartment, with the clear nature of the case also allowing the marbles to be clearly seen. More expensive though are collector marble cases which serve a similar purpose but marbles are housed in high density foam, although the nature of the cases does mean that the marbles cannot be viewed without opening the marble suitcase.

There are also fun methods of displaying marbles, one such method is the magnifying display block. Relatively cheap, magnifying blocks are comparable in price to two reversible cones. These magnifying blocks can obviously highlight the inner elements of the marbles.

Of course not all marbles are deserving of the expense of displaying them properly, and so many marble enthusiast look to more novel ways to show them off. Many craft stores now sell coloured stones and pebbles to put in vases, there is though no reason why marbles shouldn’t be used in a similar way. Certainly having marbles on display, even if they are simply put in a vase, is better than having them hidden away in the loft.

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