AUCTION  / 

#1104 Marble Auction

Auction CurrencyUSD Auction Location10 Twarog Pl, Shelton, Connecticut, 06484, United States

Auction Details

Marble CyberAuction #1104 is the beginning of the Joe Rocco collection. This collection will take 3 or 4 auctions to get through.

Joe owned Strider Records in Greenwich Village and began collecting in the 1960s. (Go to http://jazzcollector.com/guest-columns/guest-column-more-tales-of-the-hunt/#more-3520 to see a great story about a record deal Joe was involved in. All the marbles in this auction came out of the basement described at the end of the story). He was known in The Village (and throughout the metropolitan area) to be a marble collector. Customers would often bring marbles into the store in the 70s and 80s and trade them for records. He also frequented the Manhattan flea markets. Can you imagine what it must have been like to go to flea markets back in the 1970s and 1980s? I can still remember Joe and his wife, Marie, coming to the marble shows that my dad held in Fairfield and Westport Connecticut in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Joe passed away in 1993 and Marie packed the entire collection into boxes and put them in the basement of their house. Nothing was touched in the intervening 19 years. I found the boxes still stacked the way they were back in 1993. When I started unpacking boxes I found a number of marbles that we had auctioned back in the late 1980s and early 1990s in Block’s Box Absentee Marble Auctions 1 through 9.

This collection offers a unique window into marble collecting habits prior to the explosion of interest in marbles in the 1990s. Back in the 70s and 80s, marble collecting was still in its infancy as a hobby. Many antique dealers considered them a novelty and didn't take the hobby seriously. This stage of the hobby was prior to the point where the really colorful and Mint handmades were coming over from Europe, and before the Berlin Wall came down. It was very difficult to find quality handmade marbles at that time. Large Mint handmades were especially rare, and many collectors bought damaged handmades and had them polished. In addition, virtually no one was collecting machine made marbles. The Larry Castle/Marlow Peterson book did not come out until 1989 and knowledge of machine made companies and product lines was very limited.

Joe was a true collector. He bought what he liked and what appealed to him. He wasn't in the hobby as an investment, he reveled in the sheer joy of having beautiful marbles to look at. Many of the large handmades, as is typical of this period, are polished so that you can see the internal design. There are a lot of handmade rarities in this collection, although all are not Mint. On the machine made side, Joe liked colors and patterns, so there is an interesting predominance of Christensen Agates and very early Alleys. There are also the more typical Akros and Peltiers. Joe also bought contemporaries that he liked. Since his collection froze at 1993, there are not many contemporaries, and only very early artists are represented. In addition, most of the contemporaries are not signed, as this did not become the norm until later in the 1990s.

Everything is offered as it came out of the boxes. In a number of instances there are still price tags and inventory tags on the marbles that he bought at marble shows.
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Marbles: Lot #41. Transparent Indian. 21/32". NM+ 8.7.41 - Marbles: Lot #41. Transparent Indian. 21/32". NM+ 8.7.
Block's Marble CyberAuctions
OTHER HANDMADE, Indian. Rare transparent Indian. This is a transparent, not a maglite. The base is transparent smokey gray. Two bands of blue on white
Bidding Has Concluded
Estimate : 40.00 - 80.00
Sold to floor for (19.00) = 19.00
 
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Marbles: Lot #42. Indian. 9/16". Mint 9.5.42 - Marbles: Lot #42. Indian. 9/16". Mint 9.5.
Block's Marble CyberAuctions
OTHER HANDMADE, Indian. Small Indian. Opaque black base. Two bands of green on stretched white. A number of manufacturing air holes on the surface. No
Bidding Has Concluded
Estimate : 60.00 - 125.00
Sold to marblehag for (26.00 + 0.00BP) = 26.00
 
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Marbles: Lot #43. Indian. 9/16". Mint 9.8.43 - Marbles: Lot #43. Indian. 9/16". Mint 9.8.
Block's Marble CyberAuctions
OTHER HANDMADE, Indian. Nice Indian. Opaque black base. One wide band of stretched white with a little blue on it. Other band is a narrow band of yell
Bidding Has Concluded
Estimate : 60.00 - 125.00
Sold to taunya for (42.00 + 0.00BP) = 42.00
 
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Marbles: Lot #44. Handmade Opaque. 21/32". NM+ 8.7.44 - Marbles: Lot #44. Handmade Opaque. 21/32". NM+ 8.7.
Block's Marble CyberAuctions
OTHER HANDMADE, Opaque. Handmade Opaque. Light rose pink. Small subsurface moon. Germany, circa 1870-1920. 21/32". Near Mint(+) (8.7). Provenan...
Bidding Has Concluded
Estimate : 15.00 - 30.00
Sold to floor for (7.00) = 7.00
 
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Marbles: Lot #45. Handmade Opaque Melon Ball. 25/32". Mint 9.9.45 - Marbles: Lot #45. Handmade Opaque Melon Ball. 25/32". Mint 9.9.
Block's Marble CyberAuctions
OTHER HANDMADE, Opaque. Handmade Opaque. Melon Ball. Raspberry red. Ground pontil. In excellent condition. Germany, circa 1870-1920. 25/32". Mi...
Bidding Has Concluded
Estimate : 80.00 - 175.00
Sold to marblehag for (46.00 + 0.00BP) = 46.00
 
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Marbles: Lot #46. Handmade Opaque. 5/8". NM+ 8.9.46 - Marbles: Lot #46. Handmade Opaque. 5/8". NM+ 8.9.
Block's Marble CyberAuctions
OTHER HANDMADE, Opaque. Handmade Opaque. Sea foam green. One pit. Germany, circa 1870-1920. 5/8". Near Mint(+) (8.9). Provenance: ex-collection...
Bidding Has Concluded
Estimate : 25.00 - 50.00
Sold to floor for (12.00) = 12.00
 
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Marbles: Lot #47. Handmade Opaque. 25/32". Mint 9.2.47 - Marbles: Lot #47. Handmade Opaque. 25/32". Mint 9.2.
Block's Marble CyberAuctions
OTHER HANDMADE, Opaque. Handmade Opaque. Jet Black. One manufacturing spot where it was laid against another marble or surface when hot. Stunning. Ger
Bidding Has Concluded
Estimate : 50.00 - 100.00
Sold to taunya for (28.00 + 0.00BP) = 28.00
 
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Marbles: Lot #48. Handmade Clearie. 1-3/16". Mint 9.2.48 - Marbles: Lot #48. Handmade Clearie. 1-3/16". Mint 9.2.
Block's Marble CyberAuctions
OTHER HANDMADE, Clearie. Hard to find marble, in great shape. Transparent clear handmade Clearie. Filled with tiny seed air bubbles. Two tiny manufact
Bidding Has Concluded
Estimate : 75.00 - 150.00
Sold to marblemikey for (40.00 + 0.00BP) = 40.00
 
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Marbles: Lot #49. Bullseye China. 3/4",.Mint 9.7.49 - Marbles: Lot #49. Bullseye China. 3/4",.Mint 9.7.
Block's Marble CyberAuctions
NON-GLASS HANDMADE, China. Handpainted China. Unglazed. Six bullseyes. Unusual color sequence. The four bullseyes around the equator are red. The two
Bidding Has Concluded
Estimate : 25.00 - 50.00
Sold to marblemikey for (9.00 + 0.00BP) = 9.00
 
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Marbles: Lot #50. Stoneware. 1-1/16". Mint 9.9.50 - Marbles: Lot #50. Stoneware. 1-1/16". Mint 9.9.
Block's Marble CyberAuctions
NON-GLASS HANDMADE, Stoneware. Salt glazed Stoneware. Gray base with blue splotches. Germany (possibly American), circa 1860-1920. 1-1/16". Mi...
Bidding Has Concluded
Estimate : 75.00 - 150.00
Sold to marblehag for (29.00 + 0.00BP) = 29.00
 
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