Christensen Marbles
The M.F. Christensen & Son Company operated in Akron, Ohio, from 1904 until 1917. Martin Christensen patented the first marble-making machine. Many M.F. Christensen marbles are transitional, because the glass was gathered by a punty and dripped by hand over the rotating machine. The machinery rounded the marble. M.F. Christensen machines did not have the automatic feed systems. The molten glass had to be hand-fed off a punty into the machinery. Later M.F. Christensen marbles do not have pontils. (story continues below products)
| #3562 BB Marbles: Christensen Exotic 19 32" 9.9
$199.99 $400.00 
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This is probably due to refinements in the glass temperature and timing, rather than improvements in the machinery. It is not known if the company ever developed automatic feed or shearing mechanisms.
M.F. Christensen marbles are strictly single-stream marbles. They are either single-color opaque or two-color slag or swirl. This is because the glass for a particular batch was all mixed in one furnace pot and not the separate streams used by later manufactures. Interestingly, there do not appear to be any M.F. Christensen & Son Company marbles the exhibit a distinctive set of three colors. The company seems to have confined itself to marbles of only one or two colors.
