SHOPTALK : House of Glass

“EVERYONE HAS marble memory,” Chuck Porter says, describing the draw that lures customers to Chuck’s Antiques and Marble Memorabilia, home of 500,000 marbles--including five-cent ruby knucklers and $50 Depression-era spheres that glow under light. “We live in a time of such fast change,” he says, “that people are looking for connections to their past.”

Marble aficionados may recognize the rare handcrafted sulphides--whimsical clay figurines of playful creatures embedded in crystal ($200 to $1,500)--made by a few families in East Germany at the start of the 19th Century. Novice investors will find distinctive starter specimens as well as contemporary collectibles among the kaleidoscope of marble history and the folklore of cat’s-eyes, swirls and aggies.

Chuck’s Antiques and Marble Memorabilia, 23 N. Altadena Drive, Pasadena; (818) 564-9582.