Talk:Marble (toy)

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Shouldn't there be a section for the different marble games? I don't mean hungry hippos and all those, I mean the classic games just played with marbles. The classic one is what I call "Tic Tac Toe" (when you hit the opponent's marble three times in a row) and also, "Patonk", "Racing Patonk", "Racing", "Flickers", "Tommies", and "Bowling". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.98.169.169 (talk) 04:09, 22 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There are lots of different versions of marbles, and different names. The article does seem to cover most of the names for the "big" ones (I call them Bonkers) but it seems very precise about the biggest being a "grandfather". I'd say it should go: Normal Marble, Medium, Medium Bonker, Bonker, Tombowler. The "Granddaddy" can sometimes come afterwards, then the "Maximus". This is just the version I played at school, but what I'm saying is that the article is a bit too exact despite the different versions of marbles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.98.169.169 (talk) 04:06, 22 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I deleted this

• Lose your marbles. In Celtic tradition men and women wore real marble around their necks or on their clothing as a sign of love and connection. These marbles were swallowed and passed through their intestines beforehand. In recent times men and women continued this tradition with the glass marble where they would drill a hole in them and string them around their neck after the marble passed through their bodies. If someone misplaced their marble, they would be in a craze like frenzy trying to find it. People who saw this crazed frenzy would say "They have lost their marbles".

Because it's a clear lie. And stupidly worded. A "craze like frenzy"? What the f? Anyway, it would be good to get a cited source. Dabizi (talk) 19:14, 27 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure Prince Charles does not advocate wrapping infants in plastic and playing "marbles" with them. Could we have a source please?

All this stuff about the history and invention of the game needs refs. Its hard to believe as it is.--Light current 04:36, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The game "marbles" was originated by Lee Sefton, of Hatch End, UK. She discovered the possibility of knocking marbles into each other whilst on a trip to the senegetti where she apparently saw Lions playing the game in an apparition. Really?--Light current 04:41, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What is up with the random person that said that marbles came from horses testies? He must have SERIOUS 'Problems"! Can't edit it though.

We had names for the various types of marbles, but I can't remember them. Marbles with blood-red internal colouring were prized, and had a special name. I remember the name "Tor" but not what it meant.

Accomplished players carried quite a bag of marbles, mostly won during games. I remember having more than 100 and some players had many more.

Most players had a favourite "shooter". Usually in games that marble was never at risk.

John S Veitch 06:49, 26 December 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnsveitch (talk • contribs)

Needs some major subcategorizing. Perhaps into geopraphical regions or even better into types of games (eg games name), since many games were probably played in one region, with some overlap between regions. Sources would be nice, but probably a lot of this information (like my entry) comes from personal experience. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.34.216.102 (talk) 02:37, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In Dunedin, New Zealand about 1949. There were several games of marbles, one of the rules was that when the thumb propelled the marble from the hand, the hand must remain still (Usually on the ground).

Ringy - A chalk ring was drawn in the ground. Each player put one marble on a line in the centre of the circle. Players took turns trying to shoot the target marbles out of the circle. If you succeeded that marble became yours.

Chase - Often played on rough ground. Aerial shots using you weak hand as a tripod rest, or firing from your knee as a rest were alowed. I can't recall how this game was started. Once underway players took turns shooting at each others "shooter" (Often a prized marble) and if you hit it, it was yours. If you missed your marble stays where it stops. When it's your turn again you fire from that spot.

Liney - A bit like "ringy" but usually played close to a wall. A chalk line was drawn about 15cm from the wall, or a natural line like a division between concrete slabs would do. Players place on marble each on the line. They then take turns firing shots from another line perhaps a meter or more away. Any marble you knock off the line is yours to keep.

~~johnsveitch~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnsveitch (talk • contribs) 06:38, 26 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed in the history that another editor removed this. It's not ready for prime time, but it deserves more consideration than just reverting it:

(SKITENS), a game played with 2 or more players. A hole is made in the ground, about 8cm in diameter, Then a line is put down about 4 or 5 meters away you. Your opponent throws your marbles at the hole the person that is closest to the hole goes first you must shoot into the hole then you can start shooting at your opponent's marble, and if you hit their marble you can keep it.

Should be short work for anyone familiar with that game.
--Jerzy•t 04:08, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is the game I remember. Dunedin, New Zealand, about 1949. We called it "holey". The hole might be made by screwing the heal of your shoe into the ground. From some distance players try to flick their marble into the hole. When someone was successful, they immediately had a free shot at any rival marbles. We usually played "for keeps", so if I hit your marble it became mine.

~~johnsveitch~~

This is the same marbles game that we played in Christchurch at primary school in the 1950s. The hole in the ground was carefully cut with a pocket-knife, and the area around the hole was made as smooth as possible, ideally an area of bare earth with no grass or weeds, and tramped down hard, to provide a hard smooth surface. Whether we played for 'keeps' or for 'fun' was negotiable, but usually we played for keeps, although a player could nominate which of his marbles was up for being taken by an opposing winner of a game, and which ones were not at risk. The populatiry of marbles fluctuated. At times, knuckle bones would take over as the preferred game, and at other times we played football or chasing type games. But, eventually, marbles would suddenly come back in as the preferred game, and all the boys would be playing it. I cannot recall ever seeing girls playing marbles, at our school it was boys only. Girls played their own games, like skipping and hop-scotch, and the genders were strickly self-segregated, with little mixing between the genders in the playground. If a boy was seen talking to a girl, he risked being accused of being a 'sissy' by his peers. As our wider society was very patriarchal in the New Zealand of the 1950s, this is not surprising.

~~PeterArcher~~

User 203.189.11.2 wrote the section on gameplay in the Philippines. However, this user has quite a heavy history of vandalism, see User talk:203.189.11.2. I have no idea if there is any truth in this section, or if it is an imaginative form of vandalism. So, anybody who cares about this article (I don't), please check. Lova Falk (talk) 16:00, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As a kid I plainly remember these being popular (Canada), yet as I grew out of them, they were seemingly replaced by pogs and I do not recall the younger kids using them. This may be of use for the article if it can be referenced.

FlowRate (talk) 00:42, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Playing marbles was very popular among South African children. I don't remember the rules, but there was an aspect of winning other children's marbles, so it was possible to amass a large quantity of marbles if you were a skilled player --194.66.226.95 (talk) 15:26, 16 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There was a marbles craze in the UK in the early 70s. One of the terms we used for a particular type of marble then was 'Betsy'. The article doesn't mention it, and I can't recall what the term signified - possibly a double-sized marble compared to the usual size. If anyone can corroborate this it might be worth adding to the list of terms. 124.187.136.195 (talk) 03:00, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The term MIB is a lot older than the movie Men In Black, back in the 19th C. (maybe before) a Mib was a small ceramic marble, about the size of a pea or cherry stone.Saxophobia (talk) 14:19, 31 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As children in a North London prep school (Belmont) in the late 60s we played various games, they always came in "crazes" which lasted a term or two each. When marbles came around we played a different version of the games listed on most websites. It was a game of currency and arithmetic as much as skill. It always involved one person "PUTTING UP" a high value marble while others could attempt to hit it form a number of paces. Putting up simply meant placing the marble against a wall. The number of paces being decided by the relative values of the target and the marble being thrown. The basic unit of value 1 was a star, this is the smallish common glass marble with a streak of colour through the centre. The commonest target was a star block, value 6 stars, which was a similar style but bigger, about 3x diameter. There were many other types. The dutchie, value 2, but hard to hit because it was very small. There was a size between star and star block with value 4 but I can't remember the name (block?). There were also marbles with multicoloured streaks with higher values than their monochrome cousins but I can't remember their names now. Only marbles with solid colour inside a clear glass sphere had any value at all. So clear coloured glass "bottle washers" or opaque "fanny adams" (aka chinas) were of no value. I you were a good shot and hit the target it became yours. Likewise all the ones that missed became the property of the target owner. Once someone put up a target they could not take it down till it was hit or until no-one wanted to shoot anymore. We never argued about the rules, but we did argue as to whether a hit had actually occurred on occasions.

After leaving school I was intrigued how the complex rules of the game were so well understood and undisputed at the school, and wondered whether the names and the game existed in other schools (when I left, my next school was in Australia where they didn't play marbles at all as far as I know). No adults were involved in dictating the rules. Another mystery was where my school friends got their marbles, I only ever saw the lowly "stars" in shops. People kept their sources secret!

If anyone reading this played a similar game or especially if they can remind me of the other marble names within this schema, I would be very interested to hear. M Avison — Preceding unsigned comment added by Squid57squid (talk • contribs) 21:21, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So glad to see the "bottle-washer" reference. Also the 1 inch diameter marble was called "Bullies" , a cause of many arguements if used in a game with the smaller type. We used front concrete patios that had a broken section that provided a shallow "bunny-hole" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.30.108.84 (talk) 18:45, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

First, the author of this article uses the word "toy" in the title. Next, he acknowledges that industrial uses for marbles do, in fact, exist. Finally, he goes on to ignore these industrial uses completely. This article needs some work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.163.48.135 (talk) 20:10, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The list of terminology is very interesting. When I was at school (1980s, in south-east England) we referred to those solid black marbles with coloured streaks (often red and yellow) as "pirates" or "corsairs". Was that widespread? 86.135.115.218 (talk) 23:54, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Does Marbles have the same vocabulary when played in France? The main page of this article would be improved if there were a list of such words in French. 216.99.198.174 (talk) 06:04, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So I gather from the comments here that at one point there was mention on this page of how one actually USES marbles. That is what I was curious about. All there is here now is a tale of how it is used in Codd-neck bottles and some game played in Uganda. I just wanted to know a typical game of marbles, back in the day. I see in the talk page someone saying "all this different gameplay stuff ought to be sub-categorized", but I don't see any damn "sub-categories". What, did you just delete the whole list? I guess if I went and bought some marbles, Google could teach me how to use them, but I'd rather it just said on the damn Wiki article....45Colt 14:59, 15 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I see that this is not a new problem. I was thinking the same thing. I wiki-walked my way here hoping to learn how a game of marbles was played in the US or the UK, where I presume the game was most popular. The article seemed to assume that the reader already knew, making statements like "They [semi-bowlers and tom-bowlers] were used in much the same way as ordinary marbles" without specifying how ordinary marbles were used. It is apparent that there are editors here who actually played marbles in their youth; input from them would be appreciated. Doktor Wunderbar (talk) 19:16, 8 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,

We want to thank Scott Mcbride and all he does for the museum. We live approx. 4 hours from the musemum and we brought our one family, son and wife and 3 children and grandma to see my marble tournament information that I won in 1958 in tucson az. If you anymore info just give me a call at [REDACTED].

Thanks and God Bless you all for what you are doing.

Jack M. Blatchford— Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.205.245.45 (talk) 15:44, 11 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

IMHO, the article should have explicit (& confirmed) notice about relations between the subject (Marbles toy) and Marble (stone/material), for example, in etymology section. Grain (talk) 13:50, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: http://www.traditionalgames.in/home/property-games/golli-gundu. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see

I mean, if there are a couple of major marbles manufacturers in the US, are they shipping all their product overseas? I seem to remember kids in Pennsylvania in the 60s playing marbles. So there's a whole section missing from the Games section. 100.15.127.199 (talk) 01:06, 28 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There are people who use marbles to make marble runs and marble races, and there is little information about that on the page. There should be more information on that as it is a big thing about marbles. (

2601:5CD:8100:5DD0:E9E3:A3D8:C57E:B499 (talk) 03:42, 23 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I came to this article looking for information about how marbles are made perfectly round, and what the acceptable devation in circularity might be. If anyone knows, please add it. ~Anachronist (talk) 18:09, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]