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Amaze-N-Marbles in Vintage Bag 60-Piece Set | 
 enlarge | Brand: Poof Slinky
Category: Toy
Buy New: $32.92
New (2) from $32.92
Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 18529
Age: 5 - 12 years
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.6
Dimensions (in): 16.3 x 11.5 x 4.3
MPN: IDL4600BM
Model: 4600BM
UPC: 015989046000
EAN: 0015989046000
ASIN: B000BYT8LW
Release Date: June 12, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | A Maze construction set with endless combinations! | | • | Just use your imagination! | | • | Ages 5 and Up |
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| Similar Items:
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Amaze-N-Marbles provide basic learning, organizational skills and coordination. These large, easy to manipulate units are made of select hard woods with a safe non-toxic finish. Great for adults and children with endless combinations. Comes with Vintage Bag. Includes 60 pieces.
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| Customer Reviews:
Good toy for grandma's house February 8, 2008
Amaze-N-Marbles is a fun toy, and a great price for a very quality set of wooden blocks that will allow you to build an incredible variety of mazes for your marbles. Some of them can get really complex. Unfortunately, there is no way to join two track peices horizontaly, so your towers will grow vertically quickly, which means you'll run out of support blocks.
The wooden blocks are very high quality and very uniform. They are durable hardwood. The marbles, however, are rather low quality. Many of them have "scars" where the mold was, I assume, inproperly filled. 10 marbles are included, but I only got about 5 usable ones. They come in a plastic packing bag. A separate pouch or cloth bag for the marbles would have been nice, as you just have to dump them in with the blocks, which can make getting them out difficult (I'd advise against dumping the bag out on the floor unless you want to go chasing marbles under the couch).
This toy has hours and hours of entertainment potiental. The set can be used as normal blocks, or incorporated with other blocks, if the children grow tired of the marbles. However, a large problem with the blocks is that they tend to shift slightly as the marbles move through them, that over a dozen or so runs means a peice has shifted and the tower needs to be fixed slightly to allow the marbles to continue. This might disappoint children who like to leave their creations up for longer periods of time. However, I feel this would make a great toy for grandma or an uncle/aunt's house, where children visit. The temporary aspect of the towers would be less noticable.
This is a fun toy for adults too. While it lacks of the more action-packed peices of other marble maze sets (no zigzages or loop-de-loops), it still can produce some neat stunts. Many awesome towers with very small (about 12"x12" or less) footprints can be built, which makes this a good "cube toy".
I've also experimented with using rubber cement to secure some of my towers with some success, but not sure about what effect this may have on the overall life of the wood peices.
Pros:
-Good variety of blocks, and a better than expected quantity of each variety
-Blocks work together inuitively, after a few minutes of play the way the different peices fit with each other becomes clear.
-Some incredibly visually interesting towers can be built in minutes.
-Big kids will get a kick out of it too. Since you can make nifty towers with small (horizontal) footprints, it makes a great cube toy.
Cons:
-Marbles are of poor quality. 10 are included, but I only got about 5 usable ones that didn't have "scarring"
-Blocks tend to slide, requiring readjustment of the tower, which might aggrivate younger children when a tower stops working, especially a complex one.
-A few more "base" peices would have been nice. You'll end up needing to use the "track" peices as supports for most towers.
-you can't bridge track peices together to make a longer track, the marble must drop to continue.
-A separate marble bag would have been nice.
 Not impressed January 23, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I'm not impressed with the quality of this marble set because the blocks which have a curved tunnel are carved roughly and there is only one way to set them up so that the marble doesn't just stop in the tunnel. If the inside of the tunnel was smooth and more carefully designed, the marbles would roll like they should.
When I was a kid, I had a fantastic wooden marble run set, but nothing on the market seems to be an equivalent. Most of the sets have holes in the the lengthy pieces for the marbles to drop through. I think that without the holes there are more possibilites for set up.
However, my four year old does enjoy this set. I play with her and have shown her how to change the set up when the marble stops.
 My 2 yr old likes this, but requires help from an adult. January 10, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The marble towers can be complicated to build, it took me a minute to figure them out. But once you get the hang of it, they're great fun. My daughter will sit there forever watching the marbles roll down the towers. The marbles are small, so I wouldn't recommend this for any child that tends to put things in their mouths, ears, or noses. And I think an older child would thoroughly enjoy this.
Great! January 3, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
My son (5 yrs old) loved playing with the marble set at his grandmother's house. Now he can build his own! You might have to use some shims on occasion to get the marbles to roll thru your design...
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