I walk by a house with a sporty red car in the driveway. Its license plate is “Cat Eyes.” Really? What would cause a person to have that phrase on his or her license plate? Perhaps it is someone who
loved the cat eye glasses Audrey Hepburn wore in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” in 1961. Maybe it is a person who likes the banded cat-eyed snake. Another possibility is a woman who likes to make up her eyes to look like a cat’s eyes. Or it might be a marble aficionado that loves cat’s eye marbles. I do remember playing with some beautiful marbles as a child. Some of them really sparkled in the sunlight. I think children have been playing the game of marbles for a long time. Let’s find out more about them.
A marble is a small spherical object often made from glass, clay, steel, plastic or agate. These balls vary in size. Most commonly, they are about 1⁄2 inch in diameter, but they may range from less than 1⁄30 inch to over 3 inches, while some art glass marbles for display purposes are over 12 inches wide. Marbles can be used for a variety of games called marbles. They are often collected, both for nostalgia and for their aesthetic colors. In the North of England the objects and the game are called "taws," with larger taws being called bottle washers after the use of a marble in Codd-neck bottles, which were often collected for play. These toys can be used to make marble runs — a form of kinetic art like a rolling ball sculpture — or they can be used in marble races, a type of race using marbles.
History
In the early 20th century, small balls of stone from about 2500 BCE, identified by archaeologists as marbles, were found by excavation near Mohenjo-daro, Pakistan, in a site associated with the Indus Valley civilization. Marbles are often mentioned in Roman literature, as in Ovid's poem “Nux” — which mentions playing the game with walnuts — and there are many examples of marbles from excavations of sites associated with Chaldeans of Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt. They were commonly made of clay, stone or glass. Marbles arrived in Britain, imported from the Low Countries — Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg — during the medieval era.
In 1503 the town council of Nuremberg, Germany, limited the playing of marble games to a meadow outside the town.
It is unknown where marbles were first manufactured. A German glassblower invented marble scissors, a device for making marbles, in 1846. Ceramic marbles entered inexpensive mass production in the 1870s.
The game has become popular throughout the US and other countries. The first mass-produced toy marbles were made of clay in Akron, Ohio, by S. C. Dyke, in the early 1890s. Some of the first U.S.-produced glass marbles were also made in Akron, by James Harvey Leighton. In 1903, Martin Frederick Christensen — also of Akron, Ohio — made the first machine-made glass marbles on his patented machine. His company, The M. F. Christensen & Son Co., manufactured millions of toy and industrial glass marbles until they ceased operations in 1917. The next U.S. company to enter the glass marble market was Akro Agate. This company was started by Akronites in 1911, but located in Clarksburg, West Virginia. Today, there are only two American-based toy marble manufacturers: Jabo Vitro in Reno, Ohio, and Marble King, in Paden City, West Virginia.
Marble games
Australia
According to Dee Taylor’s Oct. 3, 2017 article “Traditional Children’s Games in Australia” at ourpastimes.com, bounce eye is thought to have been in existence for more than 200 years. It involves marbles and at least three players. After a 12-inch circle is drawn, each player deposits two of his three marbles in the center. Each player takes a turn dropping his remaining marble over another player's marble, trying to knock it out of the circle. When a marble is displaced, it becomes the property of the individual responsible. Turns are taken until all the marbles are outside the circle. The player who accumulates the most marbles is the winner.
According to Wikipedia, in Australia, games were played with marbles of different sizes. The smallest and most common was about 5⁄8 inch in diameter. The two larger, more valuable sizes were referred to as "semi-bowlers" and "tom-bowlers," being about 3⁄4 inch and 1 inch in diameter, respectively. They were used in much the same way as ordinary marbles, although sometimes they would be declared invalid because of the advantage of their larger mass and inertia. Owners of large marbles were also afraid to use them because they could be lost to another player as "keepsies." They were usually of the clear "cat's eye" or milk glass type, just bigger.
"Firing" a marble meant that a player had to flick their marble from a stationary position of their hand. No part of the hand firing the marble was permitted to be in front of the position where the marble had been resting on the ground. Using that hand, the player would flick or fire the marble from their hand, usually with the knuckle on the back of the hand resting on the ground, and usually using the thumb of that hand to do so. All shots of the game were conducted in this manner throughout except the very initial pitch towards the bunny hole that started the game.
Once a player was able to land their marble within the hole, they would immediately then fire his marble at their opponents' marbles. However, if any player hit another player's marble before their own marble had been to “visit” the bunny hole, the act would be referred to as "a kiss;" the game would be over, and all or both players — in the case of two players only — would have to retreat back to the starting line to restart the game, without result. This could be frustrating if a player had already built up quite a few hits on another player's marble, so most skilled players did not resort to this kind of tactic.
The overall aim was to hit a particular marble three times after getting into the hole, then to "run away" before the final contact shot was allowed to be played — which was called "the kill." Once a player made a kill on another marble, if the game was “for keeps,” the player would then get to keep the marble — or “bunny” — they had “killed.” The format of playing this game was that each time a player successfully hit another player's marble, they were to have another shot — even if it was not the marble they had originally intended to hit.
The ideal play was to hit the particular opponent’s marble three times, and then “run away” to the bunny hole, immediately having another shot, and leaving no opportunity at all for an opponent to retreat their own marble before "the kill" was made on it.
India
In India, there are many games with marbles. One simple game with marbles is called "Cara" in which every player puts one or more marbles in a long line of marbles with each marble being one centimeter or slightly more, apart from each other. After this, each player throws another marble as far as possible from the line, perpendicularly. In this game, the player whose marble is farthest from the line gets the first chance to hit the marble's line and subsequent players who get to hit the line have their distance from the line in decreasing order. Any player who hits and displaces a marble in the line gets to take that and all marbles to the right of it. Usually, marbles in the line are smaller, whereas the players have bigger marbles for hitting the line. This game needs the playground to be flat and hard and with no loose soil for effective games of "Cara." The number of players can be anywhere between 2 and 30. The distances of the marbles thrown determine the order of players who get to hit the line are anywhere from 10 to 30 meters and may depend on player's desire to hit the marble line first and how much risk they will take so that they would be at some distance and yet be able to hit the line of marbles and get more than two marbles. Players have to roll their marbles from a distance to hit the line of marbles. Each player gets to hit the line only once assuming there are marbles left in the line and every player gets a turn in order. If there are marbles left in the line after all players had their chances, the game is restarted with just the leftover marbles. In a line of 20 marbles, it is reasonable to get at least five to 20 marbles depending on how skillful somebody is at hitting the line. When all marbles are taken by players as above, the game is restarted with players putting their marbles in the line and trying to win as many marbles as possible. If some marbles are left in the line after each player takes a chance, the players again throw their marbles perpendicularly to this line and start to roll their marble to hit the line according to the above rules. This process is repeated until all marbles are taken in the game.
Uganda
In Uganda, a popular marbles game is called dool. It requires a small pit dug in the ground for two or more players, each with his own marble. To improvise, Ugandans also use the seeds of a candlenut tree, locally referred to as Kabakanjagala or “The King loves me.” To start a game, a throwing line is drawn on the ground using chalk or a stick about a meter or some feet from the pit. Then the players roll their marbles close to the pit. The one whose marble falls in gets points equivalent to one game. If a second marble falls in and hits the first, a player gets more points than the previous player, but all have to return to the throwing line. When no marble falls in, the player whose marble rolls closest to the pit starts the firing session. When he misses, the next opponent fires. You can only fire 24 consecutive times per turn earning one point for each hit. But all that time, a player must make sure the gap between the marbles is bigger than two stretches of the hand. If an opponent realizes that it isn't, then he can make a call, pick his marble and place it anywhere. When a player is targeting a marble placed near the hole, he must avoid knocking it into the hole or else give away an advantage. There are various rules for dool but the player with the most points wins. Favored fingers include the middle finger for blasting strength and small finger for accurate long-distance target.
Taiwan
The Taiwanese variation of marbles is played on a 1.5- to 2-meter diameter pit, which comprises a circle of flat bare earth; preferably the hard-packed gray clay that is commonly found in the floodplains throughout the island. Within the pit are five shallow holes or depressions. Four are at the points of the compass near the perimeter of the pit with the fifth directly in the center. The depressions are no more than 10 centimeters in diameter and 3 centimeters deep.
The starting order is determined by rock paper scissors. Players start at the northern hole with the objective of flicking their marbles into the center hole. If a player’s marble makes it into the center hole, then that player is allowed an additional shot, otherwise the players must leave their marbles as they lie and wait for their next turn before attempting to flick their marble into the center hole. When making shots from a hole, players are allowed to shoot from outside the hole as long as the little finger of the shooting hand remains in the hole.
This process continues from the center hole to the southern hole, from the southern hole back to center, from the center hole to the eastern hole, from the eastern hold back to center, from the center hole to the western hole, from the western hole back to center and finally from the center hole back to the northern hole.
The first player to complete the course and return to the northern hole becomes the “ghost.” The ghost’s objective is to strike the other players’ marbles before they can complete the course. If the ghost successfully strikes another player’s marble, that player loses the game, and if the players have agreed to “play for keeps,” his or her marble is forfeited to the player who controls the ghost.
If another player manages to complete the course before the ghost can capture his or her marble, then that player wins the game, and the game is over.
Marble terminology
- Knuckle down": the position adopted at the start line at the beginning of a match. The player begins with his or her knuckle against the ground.
- "Quitsies": allows any opponent to stop the game without consequence. Players can either have "quitsies" (able to quit) or "no quitsies."
- "Keepsies" (or "for keeps"): the player keeps all the marbles he or she wins.
- "Elephant stomps": when called, it allows a player to stomp his or her marble level with the ground surface, making it very difficult for other players to hit.
- "Bombies": when called, it allows a player to take one or two steps while holding his or her marble and, while closing one eye, will line up over one of the opponent's marbles and drop the marble trying to hit the marble on the ground.
- "Leaning tops": when called, a shooter leans in on his or her off hand for leverage over an i indentation on any type of surface or obstacle.
- A "taw" or "shooter" is generally a larger marble used to shoot with, and "ducks" are marbles to be shot at.
- Various names refer to the marbles' size. Any marble larger than the majority may be termed a boulder, bonker, cosher, masher, plumper, popper, shooter, thumper, smasher,
noogie, taw, bumbo, crock, bumboozer, bowler, tonk, tronk, godfather, tom bowler, fourer,
giant, dobber, dobbert, hogger, biggie or toebreaker. A marble smaller than the majority is a
peawee, peewee or mini. A "grandfather" is the largest marble, the size of a billiards ball or
tennis ball.
- Various names for different marble types (regional playground talk, Leicester, UK): Marleys (marbles), prit (white marble), Kong (large marble), King Kong (larger than a bosser), steely (metal bearing-ball). Names can be combined: e.g., prit-Kong (large white marble).
British and World Marble Championship
The British and World Marbles Championship is a marbles knock-out tournament that takes place annually on Good Friday and dates back to 1588. It is held at the Greyhound public house in Tinsley Green, West Sussex. Teams of six players participate to win the title and a silver trophy. The event is open to anyone of any age or nationality. Over the years, players from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Estonia, Ireland, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Wales and the United States have participated alongside English teams.
Both the 2020 and 2021 events have been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The tournament dates back to 1588 during the reign of Elizabeth I, when marbles was chosen as the deciding game of a legendary sporting encounter between two young suitors, Giles and Hodge, over the hand of a Tinsley Green milk maiden named Joan. Every popular sport of the day was played in an Olympic style contest lasting one week. Hodge had been victorious at singlestick, backsword, quarter staff, cudgel play, wrestling and cock throwing, while Giles had won at archery, cricket-a-wicket, tilting at quintain (jousting targets), Turk's head, stoolball and tipcat. With the score level at 6–6, Good Friday was the date chosen for the final event. Marbles was chosen by the girl to be the deciding game, and Giles defeated Hodge.
The championships are organized by the British Marbles Board of Control and the version of marbles played is "Ring Taw," known in the United States as "Ringer" and in Germany as "Englisches Ringspiel." Forty-nine target marbles are grouped closely together in a 6-foot diameter raised concrete ring covered with sand, each of the target marbles being a colored glass or ceramic sphere having a diameter of approximately half an inch.
Two teams of six players of any age, gender or skill level take turns using the tip of the finger to aim and project the "tolley," a larger marble — commonly referred to as the "shooter" or "taw" — which is a glass or ceramic sphere of three-quarters of an inch diameter, deploying top spin, back spin and side spin, to drive other marbles out of the ring.
A player's knuckle must be touching the ground when shooting, known as "knuckling down." Moving the tolley closer to the target marbles, known as "cabbaging," is forbidden — as is any other advantageous movement of a player’s shooting hand during shooting. These would constitute a foul known as "fudging." Any intentional or persistent contact between a player's clothing and a marble or tolley while it is motion would be a foul called "blocking." No score results from a foul shot. A foul shot ends the turn of the offending player, though the score achieved in that turn stands. Any player who makes three foul shots during a game is eliminated from that game. The first team to knock out 25 marbles from the ring is the winner.
National Marbles Tournament
According to nationalmarblestournament.org, Wildwood, New Jersey has been the home of the National Marbles Tournament for decades. The tournament was founded in 1922 and has provided thousands of dollars in college scholarships to the national champions and winners of the sportsmanship award for their professional skills in the rings at the historic boardwalk's Ringer Stadium every summer.
Over 1,200 games are played over the four-day tournament among a backdrop of Ferris wheels and roller coasters. Champion mibsters or marble shooters from local tournaments around the United States compete in the big show with families and fans cheering on their support.
Contestants must be between 7 and 14 years of age on June 10. A player turning 15 on June 11 or after is eligible.
To be eligible for the National Tournament, the boy and girl shall be the local champions, representing a city, county or state. Those areas approved may bring one boy and one girl. Areas that have the approval of the committee may also bring a second-place finisher for both their boys’ and girls’ tournaments as well.
Local tournaments are conducted by various agencies, organizations, civic clubs or businesses, etc., and shall be conducted in an appropriate and fair manner according to the local organizations rules and the bylaws of the National Tournament.
Marble demonstrations, classes, practices and tournaments must be publicly announced through newspaper articles, local news media, etc. and open to the general public for participation.
Types of marbles
- Aggie - made of agate — aggie is short for agate — or glass resembling agate, with various patterns like in the alley.
- Alley or real - made of marble or alabaster — alley is short for alabaster, streaked with wavy or other patterns with exotic names like corkscrew, spiral, snake, ribbon, onyx, swirl, bumblebee and butterfly.
o Ade - strands of opaque white and color, making lemon-ade, lime-ade, orange-ade, etc.
o Cat's eye or catseye - central eye-shaped colored inserts or cores injected inside the marble.
§ Beachball - three colors and six vanes.
§ Devil's eye - red with yellow eye.
- Red devils - same color scheme as a devil's eye but swirly.
o Clambroth - equally spaced opaque lines on a milk-white opaque base. Rare clams can have blue or black base glass. Medium-high value for antique marbles; rare base color valued much higher.
o Lutz - antique, handmade German swirl, containing bands of fine copper flakes that glitter like gold. Erroneously thought to have been invented by noted glassmaker Nicholas Lutz. Medium-high value for antique marbles, depending on specific sub-type of Lutz design.
o Oilie or oily - opaque with a rainbow, iridescent finish.
o Onionskin - antique, handmade German swirl, with many closely packed surface streaks. Medium price range for antique marbles.
o Opaque - a popular marble that comes in many colors.
o Oxblood - a streaky patch resembling blood.
o Pearls - opaque with single color with mother of pearl finish.
o Toothpaste - also known as plainsies in Canada. Wavy streaks usually with red, blue, black, white, orange.
o Turtle - wavy streaks containing green and yellow.
- Bumblebee - modern, machine-made marble; mostly yellow with two black strips on each side.
- China - glazed porcelain, with various patterns similar to an alley marble. Geometric patterns have low value; flowers or other identifiable objects can command high prices.
o Plaster - a form of china that is unglazed.
- Commie or common - made of clay; natural color or monochrome coloration. Made in huge quantities during 19th and early 20th centuries.
o Bennington - clay fired in a kiln with salt glaze — usually brown, often blue. Other colorations fairly scarce. Fairly low value.
o Crock - made from crockery or earthenware clay.
- Croton alley or jasper - glazed and unglazed china marbled with blue.
- Crystal or clearie or purie - any clear colored glass - including "opals," "glimmers," "bloods," "rubies," etc. These can have any number of descriptive names such as "deep blue sea," "blue moon," "green ghost," "brass bottle" or "bloody Mary."
o Princess - a tinted crystal.
o Galaxy - modern, machine-made marble; lots of dots inserted to look like a sky of stars.
- Indian - antique, handmade German marble; dark and opaque, usually black, with overlaid groups of color bands; usually white, and one or more other colors. Can also have many colors like blue, green and scarlet. Medium price range for antique marbles.
- Mica - antique, handmade German marble; glassy to translucent with streaks or patches of mica, ranging from clear to misty. Value depends on glass color.
- Steely - made of steel; a true steely — not just a ball bearing — was made from a flat piece of steel folded into a sphere and shows a cross where the corners all come together.
- Sulphide - antique, handmade German marble; large — 1.25 to 3 inches or more — clear glass sphere with a small statuette or figure inside. Most common are domesticated animals such as dogs, cats, cows, etc.; then wild animals; human figures are scarce; inanimate objects such as a train or pocket watch are very rare and command high prices. The interior figures are made of white clay or kaolin and appear a silvery color due to light refraction. A sulphide with a colored-glass sphere or with a painted figure inside is also very rare and brings a high price. Like other types of antique marbles, sulphides have been reproduced and faked in large quantities.
- Swirly - is a common marble made out of glass with one swirly color.
- Shooter - Any marble but in a bigger size.
- Tiger - clear with orange-yellow stripes.
- Baby - white with colors visible on the outside.
- Tom Bowler - Large glass marble at least twice as big as a normal marble.
Art marbles
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 individual artists such as Josh Simpson.
Art marbles are usually around two inches in diameter — a size also known as a "toe-breaker" — but can vary, depending on the artist and the print.
Marble collecting
Marble players often grow to collect marbles after having outgrown the game. Marbles are categorized by many factors including condition, size, type, manufacturer/artisan, age, style, materials, scarcity and the existence of original packaging, which is further rated in terms of condition. A marble's worth is primarily determined by type, size, condition and eye appeal, coupled with the law of supply and demand. Ugly, but rare marbles may be valued as much as those of very fine quality. However, this is the exception rather than the rule, and normally "condition is king" when it comes to marbles. Any surface damage — characterized by missing glass, such as chips or pits — typically cuts book value by 50% or more.
Due to the large market, there are many related side businesses that have sprung up such as numerous books and guides, web sites dedicated to live auctions of marbles only and collector conventions. Additionally, many glass artisans produce art marbles for the collectors' market only, with some selling for thousands of dollars.
Manufacturing
Marbles are made using many techniques. They can be categorized into two general types: hand-made and machine-made.
Marbles were originally made by hand. Stone or ivory marbles can be fashioned by grinding. Clay, pottery, ceramic or porcelain marbles can be made by rolling the material into a ball, and then letting dry or firing, and then can be left natural, painted or glazed. Clay marbles, also known as crock marbles or commies (common), are made of slightly porous clay, traditionally from local clay or leftover earthenware i.e., "crockery," rolled into balls, then glazed and fired at low heat, creating an opaque imperfect sphere that is frequently sold as the poor boy's "old timey" marble. Glass marbles can be fashioned through the production of glass rods which are stacked together to form the desired pattern, cutting the rod into marble-sized pieces using marble scissors and rounding the still-malleable glass.
One mechanical technique is dropping globules of molten glass into a groove made by two interlocking parallel screws. As the screws rotate, the marble travels along them, gradually being shaped into a sphere as it cools. Color is added to the main batch glass and/or to additional glass streams that are combined with the main stream in a variety of ways. For example, in the "cat's-eye" style, colored glass veins are injected into a transparent main stream. Applying more expensive colored glass to the surface of cheaper transparent or white glass is also a common technique.
There were a lot of businesses that made marbles in Ohio. Currently, the world's largest manufacturer of playing marbles is Vacor de Mexico. Founded in 1934, the company now makes 90% of the world's marbles. Over 12 million are produced daily.
Games using marbles
- Abalone, a board game in which white and black marbles try to knock each other into a gutter that lines the outside of the board.
- Aggravation board game, a variation of Pachisi.
- B-Daman, a toy that fires marbles and can be played under several game rules.
- Bakugan Battle Brawlers, a game which uses magnetic spring loading marbles which open up to reveal creatures used to play the game.
- Chinese checkers, often called "marble checkers," a board game for two to six players using marbles as game pieces.
- Hungry Hungry Hippos, a tabletop game for two to four players involving marbles.
- Ker-Plunk, a game for two to four players involving marbles.
- A rolling ball sculpture, also marble slide, marble maze, marble run, marble rail and marble coaster. Used in such things as pinball machines and Rube Goldberg machines. A game of skill, involving building using rails, tracks, cones, wheels, levers and ramps.
- Tock, also known as Tuck, is a cards/board game in which players race their four marbles or tokens around the board, with the objective being to be the first to take all of one's marbles "home."
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