When I use to have my retail store in Greenwich Village NYC. I met a man that dug old wells all over The tri state area. He primarily dug the wells looking for old hand blown bottles, inevitably he would come across old marbles of different types and bring them to me and since I already new about the German marbles beads from Africa I was fascinated and I would buy them from him. It was all good fun and not expensive but (see next post)