A NEW BATCH OF MARBLES

From about 1900 to 1950, Ohio was the marble-producing capital of the world. Glass marbles for children came from dozens of Ohio glass companies. But games like marbles have been replaced with electronic games, and marbles are collected today by adults. Only two marble factories remain in the United States. This week a group of collectors bought some glass and arranged to fire up the furnace at one of those two factories--Jabo Inc. in Reno, Ohio--to make one more batch of marbles. The 1-inch marbles came out of the kiln with multicolor speckles in the glass. Each one of the 120,000 marbles is different. Value now: probably $10 to $100 apiece, but none are for sale. Record price for any marble sold at auction: $7,700 for an Indian swirl marble that auctioned in New York in 1995.