Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube
    Nostalgia Central
    • Home
    • Blog
      • Lists
      • Playlists
    • Television
      • TV by Decade
        • TV – 1950s
        • TV – 1960s
        • TV – 1970s
        • TV – 1980s
        • TV – 1990s
      • Comedy
      • Drama
      • Kids TV
      • Variety
      • News & Sport
      • Advertisements
    • Music
      • Music by Decade
        • Music – 1950s
        • Music – 1960s
        • Music – 1970s
        • Music – 1980s
        • Music – 1990s
      • Artists – A to K
        • Artists – A
        • Artists – B
        • Artists – C
        • Artists – D
        • Artists – E
        • Artists – F
        • Artists – G
        • Artists – H
        • Artists – I
        • Artists – J
        • Artists – K
      • Artists – L to Z
        • Artists – L
        • Artists – M
        • Artists – N
        • Artists – O
        • Artists – P
        • Artists – Q
        • Artists – R
        • Artists – S
        • Artists – T
        • Artists – U
        • Artists – V
        • Artists – W
        • Artists – X
        • Artists – Y
        • Artists – Z
      • Artists – 0 to 9
      • Genres
      • Music on Film & TV
      • One-Hit Wonders
      • Online Radio
    • Movies
      • Movies by Decade
        • Movies – 1950s
        • Movies – 1960s
        • Movies – 1970s
        • Movies – 1980s
        • Movies – 1990s
      • Movies – 0 to 9
      • Movies – A to K
        • Movies – A
        • Movies – B
        • Movies – C
        • Movies – D
        • Movies – E
        • Movies – F
        • Movies – G
        • Movies – H
        • Movies – I
        • Movies – J
        • Movies – K
      • Movies – L to Z
        • Movies – L
        • Movies – M
        • Movies – N
        • Movies – O
        • Movies – P
        • Movies – Q
        • Movies – R
        • Movies – S
        • Movies – T
        • Movies – U
        • Movies – V
        • Movies – W
        • Movies – X
        • Movies – Y
        • Movies – Z
    • Pop Culture
      • Fads
      • Toys & Games
      • Fashion
      • Decor
      • Food & Drink
      • People
      • Technology
      • Transport
    • Social History
      • 1950s Year by Year
      • 1960s Year by Year
      • 1970s Year by Year
      • 1980s Year by Year
      • 1990s Year by Year
      • Events
    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Pop Culture»Toys & Games
    Toys & Games 6 Mins Read

    Marbles

    Share
    Facebook Twitter Pinterest WhatsApp Reddit Email

    The earliest marbles were actually round stones, nuts, fruit pits or fired pieces of clay and pottery. Some say they were found in the Egyptian pyramids and in North American Indian mounds.

    The young Roman boy Octavian (that’s Emperor Augustus to us) was written to have played games with nut marbles. And jumping forward, there has been a National Marbles Tournament in Tinsley Green, England, every Good Friday for at least a few hundred years.

    marbles_006Marbles also made appearances in plenty of literature during the 1800s. Let’s just say that they’ve been around for a long time.

    We know that handmade glass marbles were produced in Germany starting in the mid-19th century because there is a known patent for ‘glass marble scissors’ from that time.

    But there’s also some evidence that early marbles were crafted in England, and in Venice, Italy, so the winner of the ‘First Handmade Glass Marble’ contest isn’t crystal clear.

    The German glass company Elias Greiner Vetters Shon, the same company that holds the patent on the marble scissors, made swirl-design marbles by hand until the 1920s, which were exported to American and English markets.

    The orb began at the end of a rod of semi-molten glass, and after a blob was formed, those special scissors sliced it off. Since the rod contained strands of different colours, the little glass results would as well.

    Today, collectors clamour for the Greiner company’s brightly coloured creations, because as names like Core Swirl, Mika, and Latticino indicate, these were little works of art. They’re still known to turn up in attics and historical dig sites.

    The production of handmade marbles ebbed in the 20s to make room for the machine-made variety. American companies like Akro, Agate, Peltier Glass and Master Made Marbles began to really churn them out.

    marbles

    They were made out of all sorts of materials: baked clay, glass, steel, plastic, onyx, and agate. The machines also meant better shooting marbles, because there were no nicks or misshapes like there were with the handmade items.

    Their names were based on a marble’s particular use (a Shooter, for instance), the material it was made of (Steelies from steel, Ally’s from alabaster), or its appearance (Flints, Cloudies, Corkscrews, Peerless Patches, etc.).

    By the 1940s, Japan was producing cat’s-eyes, which were the most popular marbles, and by the 1960s, nearly all the world’s little round ones were produced in the Far East or Mexico. But handmade glass marbles rolled onto the collector scene once more in the 70s and 80s – glass craftsmen once more having a go at the orbs.

    Marble play involves rolling, throwing, dropping, or knuckling (marble balanced on the forefinger, thumb shooting marble outward) your little round guys against an opponent’s marbles or another prescribed target.

    The game itself has dozens of variations. There is Taw, Ring Taw, Ringer, Lagging, tic-tac-toe, hit-and-span, assorted pot games, bridgeboard, Chinese marbles, boxies and keepsies (probably the most heartbreaking of all, because if your opponent wins, he gets to keep all of your marbles).

    Ring Taw is frequently played by adults and has official rules, as laid down by the British Marbles Board of Control. 49 half-inch-diameter marbles are used, and each player has a tolley, a larger marble of up to three-quarters of an inch. The ring, drawn on any available hard surface, is six feet in diameter. The objective is to knock more marbles outside the ring than the opposing player or team.

    marbles36

    At the start, the 49 marbles are compressed into a circular ‘pack’ in the middle of the ring. The captain of the team ‘tolleys off’ by holding their tolley to their nose and letting it drop into the ring.

    The tolley nearest to the edge of the ring plays first. Each turn starts with the tolley placed in the crook of the index finger and flicked from the edge of the ring towards the marbles inside.

    Every marble knocked out of the ring scores.

    Judgements are made by looking from directly overhead: a marble which lies exactly on the line is still in but if its middle is beyond the line it is out. If one or more marbles are knocked out and the tolley is still within the ring, the player gets another shot and his turn continues until he fails to knock a marble out or the tolley itself goes out.

    If a shot fails to knock a marble out and the tolley finishes inside the ring, it stays there until that player’s next turn. This is to be avoided as it means the tolley can be ‘killed’ – knocked out of the ring – by the opposing team.

    A dead tolley is not removed, but the player is handicapped by having to ‘knuckle down’ his shots, playing them with the back of the hand touching the ground. The game ends when the last marble is knocked outside the ring and the winner is the player or team who collects more marbles.

    Marblespeak

    DUBS – Hitting two or more ducks out of the ring.

    DUCKS, MIGGS or MIBS – The marbles placed in the ring to be shot at.

    FOR FAIR – Playing to return to owners all marbles won during the game.

    FUDGING – Moving hand across the line when shooting. This is forbidden.

    HISTING – Raising hand from the ground in shooting. This is forbidden.

    KNUCKLE DOWN – To rest knuckles on the ground when shooting.

    LAGGING/DRIBBLING – Tossing or shooting for the line to determine the order in which players shoot.

    LAG LINE – Line formed by mark on the ground ten feet away from lagging point.

    LOFTING – Shooting in an arch through the air instead of rolling shooter on the ground.

    MIBSTER – A marble player.

    PICKS – Removing obstructions or levelling ground in front of shooter.

    ROUNDSTERS – Taking a different position for shooting (on rings only).

    SHOOTING/FLICKING – Holding taw between thumb and first finger and releasing it by force of thumb.

    SNEAKING – Shooting to lay close to ducks for next shot.

    TAW, TOLLEY or SHOOTER – Marble shot from the hand of a player.

    Related Posts

    • Toobin'
      Toobin'
      Years before Extreme Sports hit the mainstream, there was Atari’s Toobin’, one of the oddest and most dangerous sports to…
    • Yo-Yo
      Yo-Yo
      A playground favourite for millions of schoolchildren the world over, the Yo-Yo is actually, according to some historians, one of…
    • Q*bert
      Q*bert
      One of the most famous faces of the golden age of arcade games was also one of the most bizarre.…
    • Hula Hoop
      Hula Hoop
      The Hula Hoop is the standard by which all fads are measured. Somewhere inside that plastic ring lay the key…
    • Atari
      Atari
      Californian Nolan Bushnell created a game called Pong in 1971. The following year -  with $250 of his own money and…
    • Popeye
      Popeye
      By the early 1980s, thanks to hits like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, video arcade games were starting to take on…
    • Avalanche
      Avalanche
      This early Atari title wasn’t exactly the black-and-white equivalent of a Swiss Alps nightmare, but it was the closest a…
    • Dig Dug
      Dig Dug
      This maze arcade game was developed by Namco in 1981 and released in 1982, licensed and distributed by Atari. The…

    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest WhatsApp Reddit Email
    Previous ArticleWrist Racers
    Next Article Stylophone

    Comments are closed.

    Follow us
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • YouTube
    You May Also Like
    • Prom Night (1980)
      While playing in a derelict building, four children accidentally […]
    • Buffalo Bill
      1 9 8 3 – 1 9 8 4 (USA) 26 x 30 minute episodes Far from […]
    • Coca Cola Kid, The (1985)
      A fizzy, offbeat Aussie comedy about corporate ideals, from […]
    • Public Enemy
      Replacing Run DMC‘s proto-bling with Afrocentric […]
    • Pirates
      1 9 9 4 – 1 9 9 7 (UK) 20 x 25 minute episodes This […]
    • Embassy
      1 9 9 0 – 1 9 9 2 (Australia) After years of peddling game […]
    Comments Box SVG iconsUsed for the like, share, comment, and reaction icons

    OUR LATEST FACEBOOK POSTS

    edition.cnn.com/2023/01/30/entertainment/cindy-williams-dead/index.html

    More sad news 😢
    ... See MoreSee Less

    Link thumbnail

    'Laverne & Shirley' star Cindy Williams dead at 75 | CNN

    edition.cnn.com

    Cindy Williams, the dynamic actress known best for playing the bubbly Shirley Feeney on the beloved sitcom "Laverne & Shirley," has died, according to a statement from her family, provided to CNN by a...
    2 days ago
    View on Facebook
    · Share
    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
    View Comments
    • Likes: 1
    • Shares: 0
    • Comments: 0

    Comment on Facebook

    www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-64442824 ... See MoreSee Less

    Link thumbnail

    Television frontman Tom Verlaine dies at 73

    www.bbc.co.uk

    His band rose to fame in the 1970s New York punk scene, scoring UK hits including Marquee Moon.
    4 days ago
    View on Facebook
    · Share
    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
    View Comments
    • Likes: 0
    • Shares: 0
    • Comments: 0

    Comment on Facebook

    www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64418847 ... See MoreSee Less

    Link thumbnail

    Mr Blobby costume sells for more than £62,000 on eBay

    www.bbc.co.uk

    The character, made famous by BBC show Noel's House Party, had been in storage since the 1990s.
    5 days ago
    View on Facebook
    · Share
    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
    View Comments
    • Likes: 0
    • Shares: 0
    • Comments: 0

    Comment on Facebook

    Put some beefiness into your mid-week menu with these recipe ideas published in a Birds Eye advertisement from the Radio Times on 30 September 1965.

    Put some "beefiness into your mid-week menu" with these recipe ideas published in a Birds Eye advertisement from the "Radio Times" on 30 September 1965. ... See MoreSee Less

    2 weeks ago
    View on Facebook
    · Share
    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
    View Comments
    • Likes: 3
    • Shares: 0
    • Comments: 1

    Comment on Facebook

    They were awful. An overpowering savoury flavour that lingered in your mouth for hours. Heaven knows what unmentionable parts of a bull went into making them 😳

    More sad news 😪

    ... See MoreSee Less

    Link thumbnail

    US rock legend David Crosby dies aged 81

    www.bbc.co.uk

    Crosby, who co-founded both the Byrds and Crosby, Stills and Nash, had been ill for some time.
    2 weeks ago
    View on Facebook
    · Share
    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
    View Comments
    • Likes: 0
    • Shares: 1
    • Comments: 0

    Comment on Facebook

    This is what they promised us when I was a kid. What happened? 

All I have is 700 channels of rubbish on the TV in High Def, TikTok, Facebook and a phone I can take photographs with . . .

    This is what they promised us when I was a kid. What happened?

    All I have is 700 channels of rubbish on the TV in High Def, TikTok, Facebook and a phone I can take photographs with . . .
    ... See MoreSee Less

    2 weeks ago
    View on Facebook
    · Share
    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
    View Comments
    • Likes: 54
    • Shares: 22
    • Comments: 7

    Comment on Facebook

    I thought we would have moving pavements by now when I was a kid 😂

    Totally agree!!!

    The new Tesla, 4.6 next century.

    We got transvestite story hour instead

    We appear to be going backwards

    There's actually a very good David Graeber essay on this very topic: thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declining-rate-of-profit

    The Jetsons strike again.

    View more comments

    Renowned Australian singer Renee Geyer is dead at 69 following complications from hip surgery. Such a fabulous voice. RIP😢

https://nostalgiacentral.com/music/artists-l-to-z/artists-r/renee-geyer/

    Renowned Australian singer Renee Geyer is dead at 69 following complications from hip surgery. Such a fabulous voice. RIP😢

    nostalgiacentral.com/music/artists-l-to-z/artists-r/renee-geyer/
    ... See MoreSee Less

    2 weeks ago
    View on Facebook
    · Share
    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
    View Comments
    • Likes: 0
    • Shares: 0
    • Comments: 1

    Comment on Facebook

    That is so sad to hear 😥 rest in peace 🙏 🕊 xx

    Gina Lollobrigida: Italian screen star dies at 95
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-64292026

    Gina Lollobrigida: Italian screen star dies at 95
    www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-64292026
    ... See MoreSee Less

    2 weeks ago
    View on Facebook
    · Share
    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
    View Comments
    • Likes: 4
    • Shares: 0
    • Comments: 1

    Comment on Facebook

    😍😍😍😍

    Vale Jeff Beck. Dead at 78. 😢

    ... See MoreSee Less

    Link thumbnail

    Jeff Beck: British guitar legend dies aged 78

    www.bbc.co.uk

    One of rock's most influential guitarists, he was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice.
    3 weeks ago
    View on Facebook
    · Share
    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
    View Comments
    • Likes: 1
    • Shares: 0
    • Comments: 0

    Comment on Facebook

    Hi everyone. Were in the process of moving www.nostalgiacentral.com to new dedicated servers to better cope with the volumes of traffic. Please ignore any SSL security errors you may receive when visiting the site over the next 24 hours while the move completes.

    Hi everyone. We're in the process of moving www.nostalgiacentral.com to new dedicated servers to better cope with the volumes of traffic. Please ignore any SSL security errors you may receive when visiting the site over the next 24 hours while the move completes. ... See MoreSee Less

    3 weeks ago
    View on Facebook
    · Share
    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
    View Comments
    • Likes: 5
    • Shares: 0
    • Comments: 2

    Comment on Facebook

    Ironically, this post has jumped off the page at me. You'll probably get most traffic today because everyone will want to see what they might be missing!

    Martin Platt

    Load more
    Please note


    Nostalgia Central covers the period 1950 to 1999 and contains some words and references which reflect the attitudes of those times and which may be considered culturally sensitive, offensive or inappropriate today.
    Popular Tags
    1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1975 1976 Action Figures Amicus Arcade games Australia Beach movies Beatles Blaxploitation Board games Britpop Canada Crime Disney Doo-Wop Elvis Presley Girl groups Glam Goth Hammer Heavy Metal Irwin Allen Labels Merseybeat Mod revival Motown New Romantic New Wave NWOBHM Oi! One-hit wonders Power Pop Pub rock Punk Radio Scotland Ska Soul music Sport Surf music
    Search Nostalgia Central
    Copyright © 1998, 2023 Nostalgia Central
    • About Nostalgia Central
    • Contact
    • FAQ

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.