Marble (toy) Required" and "The Colbert Report". Currently, the world's largest manufacturer of playing marbles is Vacor de Mexico. The company makes 90 percent of the world’s marbles. Over 12 million are produced daily. Marbles are also made in China and may contain lead, arsenic, and/or cadmium due to the manufacturing process of old glass. Art marbles are high-quality collectible marbles arising out of the art glass movement. They are sometimes referred to as contemporary glass marbles to differentiate them from collectible antique marbles, and are spherical works of art glass. Collectible contemporary marbles are made mostly in the United States by
Elgin Marbles an increased interest in classical Greece, and in June 1816, after parliamentary hearings, the House of Commons offered £35,000 in exchange for the sculptures. Even at the time the acquisition inspired much debate, although it was supported by "many persuasive calls" for the purchase. Lord Byron strongly objected to the removal of the marbles from Greece, denouncing Elgin as a vandal. His point of view about the removal of the Marbles from Athens is also mentioned in his narrative poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage", published in 1812, which itself was largely inspired by Byron's travels around the Mediterranean and the Aegean