Customer Reviews

The Encyclopedia of Modern Marbles, Spheres, & Orbs (Schiffer Book for Collectors with Value Guide)

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2 star:		(1)
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For those of you who aren't aware Mark Block was convicted of a felony for screwing around with marble artist creations. He was also charged with faking marks on marbles to increase value although these were dropped as part of a plea deal. So my question is what publisher in their right mind releases a book supposedly by an expert who has a felony conviction specifically related to the subject he is an expert in? Obviously not a very conscientious publisher. Let me be the first to publicly state that I will boycott all Schiffer books until they get this criminal off their roster -- and no this doesn't apply to the rest of the Blocks. For those of you who want to support criminal behavior and want to buy this book beware the pictures aren't good, each one has a reflection on it, and the marbles in the book are certainly not first quality. By the way Mark, how many of the marbles in the book that were given as "donations" actually were "mistakenly" sold by you or your brother? Oh, I'm sorry you can't sell marbles - that's against your probation isn't it?

While Block's first coffee table book on the subject of contemporary marbles was a fine piece of work, his second book is not, and anybody who says it is is either blind or crazy or a homer. Marble collectors love to see nice pictures of beautiful marbles, and while there are indeed LOTS of marble pictures in this book to look at, the vast majority of them are of such poor quality that it actually becomes a painful process to keep flipping the pages to see more of them. But that's not the worst part of the book. More egregious than the photography is the organization of the book. It is a haphazard mess of marbles, with no clear sense of how they are grouped and why. It actually starts out as if it's going somewhere, but then completely falls apart, as if the author was being whipped while on a chain gang in order to get the book finished by some crazy deadline. It ended up being maddening to flip through, since marbles were thrown together in bizarre ways that just leave you frustrated.

In summary, save your money and find places online instead where you can find some true quality pictures of marbles with MUCH better stories and descriptions behind them. Hopefully somebody else comes out with a better book to redeem the marble community from the pain of this one.

A perfect book for the marble collector, this is the kind of book that can be read a hundred times and learn something new about the marble collectors world. Beautiful pictures and it shows that a lot of work went in to this book! Looking forward to more books by Mark Block!

I haven't been collecting art glass marbles all that long, but I do know a beautiful book when I see one. The pictures are fantastic, clear and cover every possible type of handmade marble. I haven't had time to read the entire book, but I have paged through it several times just to marvel at the photography. What I have read seems to be concise and well written. I'm sure that I will find it to be a valuable source of reference for years to come.

There's only one problem... every page shows a different type of marble that I need to add to my collection... this could get expensive!

This book is clearly one of only two that specialize in the hot collectible of contemporary marbles. Mark Block is the reknown and acknowledged expert in the field. This is easily seen in the in-depth research he has done, the cooperation he received from the Corning Museum of Glass, and all of the beautiful works that were incorporated into this exciting volume. I only hope that future books by Mark Block will meet or exceed his own expectations. If they do, the glass community will be all the better for it. He is truly Mr. Ambassador when it comes to contemporary marbles and related art glass.