Enthusiasts to gather at marble show

Collectors, dealers from all over U.S. to attend convention

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A room full of marble collectors may be the perfect setup for "lost marble" jokes, but the folks coming to the valley for the Vegas Marble Show are coming with their jars -- and their display cases -- full.

Marble collector and dealer Lee Linne said it can be hard for dedicated collectors to find high-end marbles on the West Coast. So Linne is determined to bring marbles to Las Vegas from across the country.

Linne, of the International Association of Marble Collectors, said the Vegas Marble Show is set for Wednesday through Saturday at the Las Vegas Club, 18 E. Fremont St. The show is being put on by the IAMC, a nonprofit group out of Seattle, and Marbleholics Anonymous/Marble Collectors Unlimited, another nonprofit from the Boise, Idaho, area.

"We are marble collectors, plus we're also marble dealers," Linne said. "Being marble collectors, it's a fairly small community."

Linne said this is the second time the two groups have brought that community together for the marble show. Previously, a different group ran the annual November event, but when that producer gave the show up, the IAMC and MA/MCU took over.

Linne, who has been a collector for about 15 years, said the West Coast is a tougher place to be a marble collector than the East Coast and the Midwest. Because marbles were childrens' toys, he said most older marbles are found in the Eastern United States because there were more children in that area.

"There's less and less as you go west, in areas that weren't as populated," he said. "In Nevada, for example, Nevada wasn't really populated until the 1930s, and that's toward the end of the marble time. If there were people here, they probably didn't have a lot of children."

Linne said his group aims to be a means by which to get collectors together to buy, sell and trade marbles.

"Those of us that happen to be very high-end collectors very seldom can walk into an antique shop and buy a marble," he said. "Most of the time ... (we) have to buy from another collector."

John Van Rhyn and his son Jeffrey, both Henderson residents, attend the marble show every year.

The elder Van Rhyn said he's been collecting marbles on and off for about 60 years. He collected marbles as a youth, though not seriously, and took up the hobby again about 15 years ago.

"I bought some ugly green marbles at a garage sale in Oshkosh, Wis., and in my quest to find out more about them, I started collecting," he said. "I had never seen marbles like them before, so I thought they were rare," he said. "They were actually industrial marbles. They weren't really worth anything."

Van Rhyn said he now owns about 40,000 marbles of varying ages and types.

Although he knows a lot about marbles, and now owns many that are worth more than the ugly green ones that sparked his hobby, many are dear to him because of sentimental, not monetary, value, he said.

"Some of them are worth thousands, but to me, some of the most desirable ones are the more common ones," he said. "When I was a kid, everyone wanted what is known as cat's eye marbles. They're common marbles now, but that's what I remember always wanting as a kid."

Jeffrey Van Rhyn said he's been collecting marbles for about 12 years and inadvertently got into the hobby through his dad.

Because Jeffrey and his wife collect all sort of things, they were browsing an antiques store when they happened upon a jar of marbles.

"It was going to be dad's birthday, so we picked some out for him," he said. "We just picked the ones we thought were pretty, but it turned out we picked really good ones. Dad was really excited."

After showing his son some books on marble collecting, John Van Rhyn went back to the antiques shop to buy the rest of the jar of marbles.

Both father and son said they do most of their marble buying and trading during the annual marble show because it's hard to find collectible-quality marbles at garage sales and antiques shops anymore. They generally do more buying than selling and trading at the show.

"(Marble collecting) can be a very rewarding hobby," John Van Rhyn said. "But I do very little selling because once I get a marble, the beauty of it makes it hard to let go."

Linne said at least 70 rooms at the Las Vegas Club have been reserved by collectors.

Brian Estepp, one of the premier marble dealers in the United States, will attend the show, as well as dealers from California, Arizona, Utah, Washington, Oregon, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

The convention will consist of in-room trading at the Las Vegas Club from Wednesday evening through Friday. There is no charge for in-room trading, and it is open to the public.

Linne said that during the in-room trading portion of the event, dealers' rooms will be open and anyone can go in to buy, sell, trade and talk marbles.

The display show is set for 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday at the Las Vegas Club, featuring more than 45 marble dealers' tables.

Tickets for the display show are $3 for adult nonmembers and free for children.