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Marble collector, Pete Saunders, has been insisting for several years that I needed to buy a lighted marble stand. Well, I finally treated myself to one for my birthday and it is a positively amazing tool for rediscovering your marble collection. Many of you probably already know … for those who do not know, read on!

I purchased a battery operated stand comprised of a small plastic unit that fits inside of a carved wooden marble stand. The batteries are replaceable. Turning it on and off is a simple twist. The name of the Ebay store is jrclocker. He had about six of them listed recently but they have all sold. I imagine he will be restocking the item. I think Marblebert carries the plug in kind of marble stand. I do not own one of those but I imagine that the result would be similar.

I knew going in that my furnace glass marbles by Kris Parke were going to look great and I was pretty certain that all my flower marbles and butterfly marbles by Kobuki, Sabina Boehm, Dan Grumbling, and Chris Rice were going to come alive in a new way. All said marbles surpassed my wildest expectations - it is like suddenly receiving a whole new marble collection! My Mark Mathews ocelot that secret Santa gifted me with not long ago glows beautifully. I had no idea it would allow light to pass through it - especially in such a magical transformation. It made me want to purr with delight. The stand has a nicely shaped small tapered opening where the light comes through so that many of my small glass spinning tops by Wald glass and Dusty Gamble rest securely on the stand and look spectacular in the stream of light. I have been able to view marbles as large as 2 1/2 inches and as small as 1/2 inch on this stand.

I figured that my Rich Hollingshead (Route 66) hollow marbles were going to be pretty exciting with light shooting through them. Electrifying, shocking and mind blowing are all understatements of how they transformed. I knew that my Mike Gong pulsators and fumers would be awesome - they are and beyond. The bigger surprise (and very mind blowing) is almost all of my Gong surface work marbles glow like gangbusters so the detail of the designs becomes incredibly well defined, almost as though they are magnified. It is so cool. About a third of my Ben Burton marbles and my Travis Weber marbles are also allowing light to pass through unexpectedly. They are fabulous marbles to begin with but it is thrilling to see the sophisticated designs with every fine detail revealed. Often, the marble is so completely transformed you can barely recognize the marble. I am having so much fun!

I have not made it through my entire collection at this time so I have many more wonderful surprises in store I am sure. New discoveries await for my Steve Willises, Eddie Seeses, Kevin Nails, John Bridges, Andrew Groners, JD Andersons, Bradley Tubbs, just to name a few.

I just want to pass along Pete's recommendation to every collector out there to get a lighted marble stand. It is the closest thing to viewing your marble the way it was viewed by the artist when it was glowing hot in the torch during the creation process except the colors have more variety (not just the red hot orange of molten glass). It rocks!