Sea Marbles: Holy Grail of the Beach

By Mary T. McCarthy

For sea glass hunters, there are few finds as exciting as the discovery of that perfectly round orb among the gravel, or the flash of color in the water (perfume stoppers and a few other bucket list finds excepted). Finding a sea marble brings inevitable joy, and to those who have not found one yet, perpetual frustration: “when will I finally find a sea marble?”

In 2017, I had the opportunity to lecture on “Sea Marbles Around the Globe” after developing a collection of marbles from two dozen beaches around the world, talking to beachcombers from many different countries, studying the history and manufacture of marbles, interviewing marble experts, and visiting the National Marble Museum in West Virginia. It was a fascinating journey, and I learned a lot during these talks, even about two types of marbles I never knew existed (steamship marbles and railroad marbles).

Marble History

To understand how marbles end up on the beach, you have to understand a little bit about marble history in general. Marbles date back to 3000 B.C. in Roman, Greek, and Egyptian history. Did you know David took down Goliath with a marble in his slingshot? The earliest North American marbles were found in ancient earthen mounds. Handmade (clay, agate, and other stone) marbles from Germany date to around 1850-1900. Elias Grenier patented the first marble making scissors in 1849. In 1870 Hiram Codd created Codd soda bottles in England to preserve carbonation.

In the United States, by the late 1800s, clay marbles were being produced in the U.S. where glass marble manufacturing began in the 1890s in Ohio. M.F. Christensen patented the first marble-making machine, but Akro Agate was the biggest; their slogan was “Shoot straight as A Kro flies.” Marble tournaments began way back in 1588 at Tinsley Green in England to win the hand of the milk maiden Joan; that tournament continues today. In the U.S., marble tournaments began in 1922 in Wildwood, New Jersey (for boys; girls weren’t allowed to compete until 1948) and were a huge competitive hobby. Because of all this early marble activity, the Great Lakes and New Jersey beaches are still popular places to find sea marbles today.

When the cat’s eye marble was invented in Japan around 1945, there were over three dozen marble manufacturers in the U.S. and most of them closed because the kids wanted the new style of marble. Only one American marble company remains today. Founded by Berry Pink and Sellers Peltier in 1949, Marble King in Paden City, West Virginia still produces one million marbles a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. After sneaking over to Japan to discover the design process, they produced the first standard American cat’s-eye marble (though technically Peltier had a similar earlier design in the 30s). They’ve sponsored the National Marble Tournament since 1968.

Beach Marbles

The marble in the photo above is the very first piece of sea glass I ever found. When we first moved to the Chesapeake Bay area nearly two decades ago, I looked online and found a nearby beach park and took my kids. It turned out the spot used to be an old amusement pier a century ago. I was walking along the shoreline while my kids played, and I looked down and saw the perfectly frosted orange cat-eye marble. I picked it up, turning it over in my hand, not really knowing at the time that it was sea glass, or even knowing what sea glass was (having grown up landlocked). I kept it, noticing there were other pieces of frosty-looking glass on the beach. One day in a local shop I stumbled across a book about sea glass (Pure Sea Glass by Richard LaMotte) and picked it up, noticing the section about sea marbles. I was hooked, and have been an avid beachcomber ever since.

It turns out in the big scheme of beachcombing, finding sea marbles is actually very rare. Finding one of the holy grails as my first piece was a blessing and a curse. It set an impossibly high standard.

How Do They Get on the Beach?

It’s been said that ship ballast is where marbles come from, and although I haven’t found primary documentary evidence for this, it’s not impossible, but not a probable common source. For one thing, childrens’ playing marbles, the most commonly found beach marble, were generally produced in the 30s-60s and beyond (and American marbles were generally transported by railroad), so not generally the timeframe of ships. If there was a type of marble that would have been used as ballast it would perhaps have been an inexpensively made, older and mass-produced marble, older even than a glass marble. Is it possible that clay marbles were used as ship ballast? Anything’s possible, though most ballast consisted of cheap, locally available rocks and stones, which could be dumped when a ship needed to enter a harbor. Read more about why marbles were almost certainly not used as ships ballast in Myth: Glass Marbles were used as ships ballast.

Although playing marbles may not have been used as ballast, they were definitely being transported by ship between Japan and the U.S. and could have been lost through shipwrecks or cargo spills. Usually, only the lightest items such as plastic toys and lightweight equipment wash up on beaches, so the marbles did not likely come from shipwrecks.

There’s a type of white clay marble found in different sizes around the world that was used for a very specific purpose. Brought to me by a diver at a sea glass festival, he claimed his collection was of a type of “steamship marble” that had been collected over the years. A steamship captain explained to him that is was forced through different sizes of pipes to clear out the salt build-up. This use has not yet been confirmed.

Another type of industrial marble found regionally is a “railroad marble” or "industrial marble." These marbles are larger than a playing marble, are identified by a rough seam line from where their two halves were crudely placed together in the manufacturing process, and they’re found along creeks, rivers and lakes that are connected in some way to railroad lines in the U.S. They were used in the production of fiberglass, a huge industry in the Great Lakes region beginning in the 20th century.

Codd marbles were invented in the 1870s to keep carbonation in drinks. They are found on beaches, more in Europe than the U.S. since that’s where Codd bottles were manufactured, but bottles from London made their way, primarily to the Northeast, where they’re sometimes found. Japanese Ramune bottles also use a marble to maintain the carbonation of the sodas they contain. 

They’re a less common find than playing marbles. Children playing on beaches with marbles (slingshotting them, as Mary Beth Beuke points out in her book The Ultimate Guide To Sea Glass) is one reason they are there now. Another very common reason marbles are on the beach is trash dump erosion. Parents threw out their children's discarded toys and the garbage tip eroded into the water.

Other marble sources besides play marbles include their use in reflector lights, household objects like broom handles, furniture feet, ballot boxes, jewelry dish and lamp décor, paint cans, and doll and stuffed animal eyes.

How To Find Them

Think like a marble. Though it seems obvious, you have to go where the marbles are. They have to come from somewhere. Check out beaches near ports or shipping channels, or on beaches like old resorts where lots of children played. Beaches near where trash dumps were located are ideal for finding marbles. Marbles don’t like to wash up on sand, they prefer rolling around in rocky areas. They don’t roll uphill obviously, so they will often be found just below the tide line and therefore can more often be found in a negative low tide. Always check tide charts: winter can often be the best season to find marbles. Marbles are a toy, like to play hide and seek, so be patient in your search.

Note:

Marble Mania by Stanley Block, Schiffer Publishing, 2011 is a great resource for information and history on marbles, and online you can check out marblecollecting.com for a wealth of information about vintage marbles.

This article appeared in the Glassing Magazine November 2017 issue. The article was updated by Beachcombing staff in 2023.

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