The week my vintage marble collection hit a gold mine

I had this old shoebox full of marbles I'd been picking up at flea markets for years... didn't think much of it. Then last Tuesday I took them to a guy in Portland who specializes in antique toys, and he pulled out a lime green slag marble from 1903 worth about $200 on its own. The whole box came to $1,400 after he sorted through them. Has anyone else stumbled onto money like that in a collection you thought was just junk?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_jessica23d ago

Make sure you get a written appraisal before selling anything that valuable online.

adam_patel23d ago

Yeah @the_jessica is right about the appraisal part, but here's the angle nobody's talking about - you might want to start checking what those marbles are made of. Some of that old glass can have uranium in it, and collectors pay crazy money for uranium glass marbles that glow under blacklight. My buddy found a whole set that way after he heard about the slag thing.

beth_reed23d ago

Adam's right about the uranium glass, but you might want to look for what's called "end of day" marbles too. Those were the ones made from leftover glass from other projects and they sometimes have swirls of colors that collectors go wild for. A quick check with a cheap UV light bulb could sort the valuable ones from the regular ones.