Marble Crazy 2007

Every year at the Moon Marble Company enthusiasts from the Midwest gather to trade, sell, and display their glass creations. The Moon Marble Company is located in the small Kansas town of Bonner Springs, about 20 miles from our home. JoLee and I thought we would pop into their little road side shop/factory for a quick visit, but when we got there we had to park a mile away and shuttle in.



I had no idea that marble making could be so popular. The front shop was loaded with thousands of marbles (and a hundred kids). JoLee and I later bought a few of these small marbles.



The back of the shop was crammed with marble creators who proudly displayed and sold their product. A few demonstrated how marbles were made.



The marbles were stunning, to say the least. They were much more impressive than I anticipated. As one pointed out, glass is one of the oldest man made materials (if not the oldest). As everyone knows, glass is made from sand. The colors in marbles come from various metals in the sand. Due to technological advancements, glass blowers have far more colors to choose from than ever before. Their tools are also more sophisticated. They even use computers to model some of their patterns.

A complex marble can take days to create. Most of the marbles we looked at cost between $50 and $100. However, we saw a number of marbles that cost more than $250, and a few that cost thousands of dollars. Marbles came in all sizes, from a quarter inch to a full foot in diameter.

Below are just a few examples of some types of marbles we saw today. The pictures don't really do them justice, but you'll get the gist.

















After ogling over the fancy marbles, JoLee and I picked out a few of the smaller, simple marbles we liked best.