Marbles..

Marbles....


Daddy taped a show called Dirty Jobs the other day for the boys to watch. This episode featured a toy marble making company called Jabo, Inc. I wouldn’t consider this a “dirty” job…more like a “really hot” job. It was interesting to see the marble making process.

It just so happens that Tyler and I have been talking about starting a collection. Starting a collection is one of the Wolf achievements this year that he has to complete. After seeing this show on marbles, Tyler decided he wanted to start a marble collection.

We began our marble collection with a lesson on collections followed by a trip to the library, where we checked out a book about Marbles.

We learned by reading in the book, to look for marbles in antique stores. So after our trip to the library we headed out to do some marble treasure hunting. We hit the jackpot at our first stop. We found a marble made out of granite. We hit some other antique stores, but no luck.

There just so happened to be a cute little “mommy “ “girlie” shop tucked into all the antique stores. After a stop for some lemonade at the tea shop we popped into “mommy’s” shop. Mommy didn’t find anything…but wouldn’t you know amongst all the cute “mommy” things the boys happened to find something for themselves. Some cute tiny animals (no bigger than a bean) made out of glass. Priced at only $2, the boys walked out with one each.

Ok…so back in the car to find more antique shops. We found a couple more…still no luck…no marbles. I happened to see another “mommy” store (this time the boys didn’t notice what kind of store it was…they thought it was anther antique shop). But as soon as I opened the door to walk in, I heard Ryan say behind me…”noooo not another PINK store”.

We ended our treasure hunting and headed home. Tyler remembered that Suzi had a big bucket of marbles that used to belong to Jon. After dinner we headed over and the boys hit the jackpot with several old and unusual marbles…best part of all they used to be daddy’s.

It’s now several days later. I know more about marbles than I ever imagined I could. Go ahead ask me a question about marbles….I bet I know the answer. And after several on line searches for local marble makers, I found a glass blower who is going to give our cub scout den a tour of his glass studio and show the boys how to make marbles….how’s that for marble collecting?

I found the marble that they made on the episode of Dirty Jobs…it’s $16.99 and called a “Luster” marble because of the swirl created when it is made that looks like gold. It’s the marble pictured above….and yes, I am going to get him one of these for his collection.