Have You Lost Your Marbles? : The History of Ordinary Things
Cave people may have played with small round balls. Clay balls have been found in the tombs of Egypt, in Native American burial grounds and in the ancient Aztec pyramids. Smooth stones, nuts, fruit pits and fired balls of clay were used for games. In the 1700s the globes were made of white alabaster, a marble stone, hence the name, marbles.
Germany was the leading manufacturer of handblown glass marbles between 1860s-1920s. A “glass marble scissors” had been patented to cut a ball of molten glass, thus creating small globes. In the heating of the glass, the form was rolled in colored sand creating the patterns in the marbles. Swirl-design marbles were made into the 1920s. The German glass blowing companies closed after WWI.
Machine-made marbles were created in America during 1920-1940s. The Christensen Agate Company of Akron, Ohio, produced a machine where hot glass was dropped onto steel rollers to shape the glass into smooth marbles.
Marbles of baked clay, glass, steel, plastic, onyx, and agate were made by familiar names like Akro Agate, Peltier Glass and Master Made Marbles. By the 1940s, the Catseye, produced in Japan, became the most popular marble of our era. Today, Vacor de Mexico is the largest maker of machine-made marbles, producing over 90% of the world’s supply.
The individual marble names may relate to their use such as the Shooter. Others are named for the material they are made of such as Steelies from steel and Ally’s from alabaster. Flints, Cloudies, Corkscrews, and Peerless Patches refer to the appearance. Other names include China, Aggie, Commie, End of Day, Bennington, Onion Skin, Mica, Bamboozer, Popeyes, Sparklers, and Moonies.
The standard marble is ½ inch in diameter. These small marbles are called “ducks” or “mibs”. The large marble, called the “shooter” or “taw”, is generally ¾ inch in diameter and is used for shooting the “mibs”.
There are 100s of variations of marble games. Ring Taw, or Ringer, was the most popular marble game in the United States. A 3-foot ring is drawn on the ground with 10 to 15 mibs placed within it. Using a Shooter outside of the ring, players take turns attempting to knock mibs out of the ring.
In advance, players agree to play “for fair” which means every player keeps their marbles at the end of the game. Or, to add excitement and drama, many play “keepsies” (for keeps) where the player who knocks all the marbles out of the ring, gets to keep everyone’s marbles.
Marbles were very popular until WWII. The game waned as kids were drawn to TV with Saturday morning cartoons followed by video gaming era. A resurgence in the 1970s revived the game through competitive marble collecting. Several YouTube videos have good discussions of marble values which vary by type, production method, and age. A single marble can be priced from $1.00 to $100 dollars. You must know your marbles!
Marbles are now a nostalgic memory of the past. Few play today.
P.S. The idiom “lost your marbles” did not originate with the game of marbles. It refers to being confused or losing your mind, in the extreme, to be crazy.
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