Playing Marbles.

[Birdgun]

Are there any other former marble players here?

As a boy, I carried a sock full of marbles to school with me every day. Us kids during recess and lunch hour would shoot marbles. We had all types of different games to shoot marbles. Not often, but every now and then, I'd sadly come home with an empty sock. I had lost my marbles. I did have a few favorite shooters I never risked loosing and kept them in my pocket. Now this is important--we never told the preacher we played marbles "for keeps." That would have meant we were gambling!

I have fond memories of playing marbles. One of my fondest memories was shooting marbles with my dad. He was really good. It's been years since kids played marbles. Too bad.

God bless,
John T.

 

[Rudi]

I lost all my marbles sometime back.

 

[BC38]

You betcha'!
My grandmother had a big glass jar of aggies and shooters and cat's eyes. Most of them belonged to my dad and his younger brothers back in the 1940's and 1950's.
My cousins and I spent a fair amount of time shooting marbles on Grandma's rug (using a length of yarn to make a shooting circle) or in the dirt of Grandma's front yard.
Unfortunately, playing with marbles had fallen out of favor with most other 8-10 year old kids my age in the late 1960's/early 1970's.
But we still had fun with them when we were spending time at my grandparent's farm.

 

[Birdgun]

I lost all my marbles sometime back.

One of those are you? If you fudged or didn't knuckle down, you automatically lost all your marbles.

 

[YeshuaIsa53]

Used to find a cat-eye or a clear marble here and there where I lived as a kid. Finally bought some to play with.

 

[moosedog]

Anyone allow "Steelies?"

 

[Narragansett]

I just gave a young girl a small mason jar of clay marbles that belonged to my mother as a keepsake

 

[NYlakesider]

Born mid 40s and at least in my area marbles was no big deal.

I found a few here and there. They made good ammo for the sling shot I had. That slingshot was home made by a Mr Fixit type handyman and compared to what you could find in stores was definitely in the magnum class!

 

[Empe]

Marbles are still a thing apparently ....check out the National Marbles Tournament in Wildwood New Jersey .

 

[sjmjax]

I use to play marbles.
But, I seem to have lost them.
��

 

[UncleEd]

On really hot days, playing marbles or Monopoly were great ways for the boys on my block to pass the time. Otherwise, when cooler, we'd be on the neighborhood street playing softball.

 

[dave1918a2]

I played marbles in grade school. Never lost them all. Now I have none left to lose.

 

[WardenRoss]

They were big when I was in elementary school.

I can remember that the teacher would confiscate them if she even heard one rattle.

Then, some dumb kid would be putting his sock full of marbles under his seat storage area and whoops!

Marbles went bouncing EVERYWHERE!

"They're mine now!" shouted Mrs. Fletcher.


,

 

[Nevada Ed]

I played with the "Gang" in grade school, with my medium bag of marbles.
I was not too good at it and lost a few marbles most of the time, but did manage to end up with a bag at the end, of all the games.

I remember cat eyes, steelies, med large and huge ones, but forget the names that we called them.
I had a all black and a all white one that I prized and would not use.

There was a "Special" rule with steel's but I forget what is was but everyone had to agree to using them.

It was a bad day if there was no chalk, that day !!

PS;
I grew up in Mill Valley, in the Bay area and as the name applies,
we had a had time finding a level place of black top, to play for our games.

With the girls and their jump rope and hot scotch, and other games with 90% of the other kids, we some times needed to
claim an area, so we could play.

 

[soFlaNative]

 

[Mule Packer]

Yep. My grandmother gave me a bunch over sixty years ago that had belonged to her and perhaps some of my uncles. I still have them plus a couple beautiful agates and one clay marble. Fun stuff.

Now, unfortunately, nobody seems to want to kneel in the dirt and play marbles when you can sit on your big fat (couch) with a bag of chips and a soda and play video games while only moving your thumbs.

 

[lkabug]

In the 50's Marbles on the playground at recess was a must. We all had Marbles and a lenght of string to to draw a circle. Those were the days my friends.........

 

[Nevada Ed]

I looked them up...........

Std size: 1/2 to 5/8"
a Shooter: was 3/4"
a Boulder: was over 3/4"

Bennington: made of clay............... $5
Aggie: Agate stone (prized) ......... $10
Mica: .......................................... $20
the new glass marbles..........

the German Lutz: with mica flakes....( top dog)..... $60 to $999 plus.

There is also the pee wee: 1/2" or smaller, that some cherrish.

carry on.

 

[Chuck24]

I remember fried marbles being a thing, heat them up in the frying pan and drop in cold water. Gave a cool crackle effect

 

[Skeet 028]

We pitched pennies...nickels when we were flush with money...for me as a kid...hardly ever had money...I spent it on ammo

 

[Birdgun]

Anyone allow "Steelies?"

We didn't allow Steelies as shooters.

Agites were allowed but rarely did anyone have an Aggie. My dad had a few from his boyhood. He had made them himself by rotating them around in a stone that had a hollowed area in it specifically for making marbles. Dad's aggies weren't perfectly round, but they definitely had more mass than my glass marbles!

 

[ralph7]

Maybe it was a regional thing.
I'm for sure old enough to have lived in that era, but I never played and don't remember seeing any formal marble games.

 

[lihpster]

In the mid to late '70s when I was a kid, marbles had fallen out of favor and not many kids even had them. I had been given a gift of a big bag of glass marbles one Christmas, but only occasionally played with them by myself. Often in ways far different from the way kids normally played with marbles. Catapult ammo was a favorite.
One day I went to go get my marbles and they were gone! I asked my mom if she had seen them and she said she had used them while potting a new houseplant. I made a kind of fuss about it and she apologized and said she'd get me some more marbles. Which she did. 8 years later. When I was sixteen and there were cars and girls and video games. All of which were more interesting than small glass balls.
During those eight years, I would sometimes joke with my mom, saying how I missed those marbles, and she'd say check your stocking at Christmas. And one year, there they were. But it didn't end there. Afterwards I started saying something was "no bag of marbles" meaning it could be better. This caught on in my family and became a favorite saying. I had that unopened bag of marbles until about 4 years ago when it went missing during a move.
So, I never played marbles, but they were definitely a part of my youth. I miss marbles. Mostly just one bag, though.

 

[Birdgun]

Maybe it was a regional thing.
I'm for sure old enough to have lived in that era, but I never played and don't remember seeing any formal marble games.

Definitely was a regional thing. We kids all played marbles in our little town in Oklahoma. But in the summer of 1956 (I was age 9), we moved to a small town in California. I carried my marbles to school on the first day of school but nobody else had any marbles! Tried to teach some of my California buddies how to play marbles, but they weren't interested. Life has its difficulties!

 

[Rustyt1953]

As a lad I played conkers. When I came home with bruised and bloodied knuckles me mum knew I had lost.

 

[zeke]

steered well clear of lads with socks full of marbles

 

[Skeet 028]

I did play marbles but not often. I had quite a few aggies given to me by my father and grandfather. Still got 'em somewhere and a couple quart jars of glass...we got ones we called cats eyes too. What's conkers??

 

[Rustyt1953]

What's conkers??

Conkers - Wikipedia

 

[Wyo]

Our two primary playground games were marbles and mumblypeg. Steelies were frowned upon as shooters. I was a mediocre marble shooter but usually managed to at least hold my own. This was in the very early ‘60’s and every boy had a knife at school. So we played mumblypeg - seemed only natural. Someone would get a little poke now and then but nobody went crying to the teacher. Such stuff happened on occasion if you played the game so we learned to deal with it!

 

[Buford57]

Marbles and mumblypeg. Two childhood pasttimes I hadn't thought of in years. The mind boggles at what would happen to a kid who showed up at school with either item today.