1988 Marble Meet

The 9th Northeast Marble Meet was the first one held in Marlborough MA. The hotel at that time was named Park West. The show was held on Columbus Day weekend in the same ballroom for the following 26 years.

 

While looking through these pictures, you'll notice that there are virtually no machine mades or contemporaries on anyone's table. The Castle & Peterson book was still almost a year away from publication, and Marbles: Identification and Price Guide would not be published for another 8 years. Collecting in this era was focused almost exclusively on handmade marbles. Notice the number of large swirls and onionskins in the pictures. You don't see that at marble shows any longer, they have all disappeared into collections now. Those were the days when you could buy most machine mades for 5 or 10 cents, and to pay anything over a dollar for a machine made was unheard of. Christensen's, Oxbloods, etc would all be found in the bulk bins.