marbles

[maureen]

Hello everyone...
We are curious about the name of large marbles, the ones we used to play with in the 50's and 60's. Please let me know as this is a daunting question for us.
thank you

Maureen
and hello to all my treasure net buddies !! we are doing well, Saber and I

 

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[TreasureTales]

See this website (I am not in any way affilitated with this website) for everything you always wanted to know about marbles.

http://www.marblealan.com/

 

[Tony in SC]

I think we called the big marbels Piggies. That was a long time ago!! Tony

 

[Ant]

In my area we call the largest marbles boulders, the size under that we call halfpints. Then we had regular marbles and then the very small marble we called peewees. We played games like pots, chase, poison and I forgot the name of the game we just shot the marbles out of a circle.

That's what I remember.

 

[mojjax]

When I was l little we called the big ones boulders also , clear small ones were crystals , and there was another type we called pixies . We would make a 3 foot circle with a small hole in the center - nock the other guys marble in the hole and you would win it .

mojjax

 

[bakergeol]

When I was l little we called the big ones boulders also , clear small ones were crystals , and there was another type we called pixies . We would make a 3 foot circle with a small hole in the center - nock the other guys marble in the hole and you would win it .

mojjax

Well this is going back 50 years. I see some things remain the same. Boulders were the large marbles. We called the clear one clearies which were worth more than regular marbles. Clearie Boulders were of course worth more than regular boulders. The heavy weights were the steelies- which were ball bearings. You could readily destroy your opponents marbles with steelies. The most valuable of course were the steelie boulders- large ball bearings. I played little of the circle games- mainly "The Chase". You throw your marble out there and your opponent will try to hit you and then your turn. You hit him and you won his marble. Rules had to be established- similar size and type only. e.g. Boulder versus Boulder. If you were playing a boulder versus a steelie boulder your opponent may insist that a substitute boulder be given if he lost. Using a steelie boulder was like losing your car in a card game. After all marbles were sort of like gambling for kids. I remember I had buckets of them yet still out to win more of them.


George

 

[Monty]

I was the school marble shooting champ in sixth grade and we played all kinds of marble games including the ones mentioned. The rules were a little different. We were forbidden from playing "keeps" but we did anyway. Just before I went into seventh grade (Junior High) I thought I had reached manhood and decided to give all my marbles away. I had a cardboard box with I don't know how many marbles in it, I stopped counting at 13,000. It was so heavy I could barely lift it. Anyway I took it to school and at recess I threw them out on the school ground and watched the kids scramble for them. I nearly cause a recess riot and I had to go to the principals office. He asked me how I got all those marbles and I told him I won them. I then got a stern lecture on the evils of gambling and he kept what was left of my box of marbles. He told me my Dad would have to come in to get them back, but I was afraid to tell Dad I was in the principals office, so I guess he kept them? It made me wonder what was worse, gambling or stealing. I think stealing to this day. Monty
Oh, I plum forgot what this post was about. We just called them big marbles and didn't particularly like them because they were too big and awkward to use as shooters in our small hands. M

 

[Boobydoo]

As Monty said, one term for the biggest marbles or boulders is "a shooter".
When we were playing marbles back then, knocking them out of the circle,
the larger the shooter marble, the better chance you have to hit the target you were aiming at.

Smiles!
BDoo

 

[sonny0065]

Hello everyone...
We are curious about the name of large marbles, the ones we used to play with in the 50's and 60's. Please let me know as this is a daunting question for us.
thank you

Maureen
and hello to all my treasure net buddies !! we are doing well, Saber and I

Here in middle Georgia I think we used to call them toy or sometimes taws . Sonny

 

[roma6]

We always called the large ones knockers. I don't know why. The little ones we called peewee's.

 

[larrybass]

Wow! 8) Maureen, Hello back at ya. Looks to this ol' boy, like you've stirred up a few memories in here. 8) You've started a Very interesting post, my new friend, and it's the first time I've read any of your posts, so I can't wait to back track a little and see what else you've talked about in the past. 8) It's way kool to pick up on these marble buzzwords you are evoking in here too. Up here in the cold white north, about fifty years ago, we used to call those big boys "Croakies" but some guys I hung with used the term Shooters and they were worth like10 or 20 regular marbles or more, especially when things got serious sometimes.

Do you think you could spare a wee pic of a glass globe or three to share with some of yer responders here? Pleasy? You've spun a memory wheel that most of us have had well stored away for many years my friend. Great work! 8) Just look at the stories below and above this message, which you've provoked here. ALL GOOD! We, as people, need those older, cooler memories to resurface. Trust me on that, it's a large part of my plan to "stay young & very alive longer" thingy. That's one of the reasons I ride a mountain bike and run a metal detector or two. This kind of memory work, works! Keep 'er goin' there, you & Saber!

Hey there Bakergeol, your memory recall brought memory pictures back to me which have laid dormant and waiting, for more than half a century now. Vivid, memory pics, that just came out of nowhere as I read your piece. What a Rush! Thx 4 dat man!

Monty man, you slay me. Then, after I got through cryin' fer ya for tossing all those little beauties outta yer life, it dawned on me, and a biggish light bulb went on. I started to wonder just how would it have turned out, had you opted to try out your first time ever, little white lie thingy that some kids had gotten into and turned into little grey lies by that time. Heaven forbid, I know, but as you realize now I'm sure, that sometimes the truth can hurt WAY, way more than a teensy non-hurtfull wee fib could or would... I remember all too well sometimes about those very hurtfull lectures that always used to do me in. No stealing, no gambling, no girls, no kool clothes, no cussin', no fartin' (ooppss, did I say that out loud? ) and of course no talkin' about sex of any description either. To think about some of those harsh and abrasive punishments we've all endured back then to some degree or other, freaks my beak sometimes. Break a rule, start the punishment system which had a long reaching grip on your whole entire little life! Rules etc must be obeyed or you will die, or well sometimes, we were pretty scared at least, if you know what I goin' on about here. Man it was tough sometimes back in those days, way before computers. Now we know it's good to learn and we can sometimes even sort of bend the odd rule especially when we, with all our wisdom, percieve it to be very odd indeed and perhaps in need of an update or elimination, even. Sorry about the length of that one friend, kinda like you forgetting what this way cool post was all about.

Hey there BoobyD, I like your recall! Up here in Kanuk land, back in those youthful days, the only way I'd play a guy with a shooter was if he'd agree up front that it was a No-Sub game. If you lose, I get your "Croakie" and that's like 10 or 15 marbles, or more even, depending on how good you thought you were. I remember once, letting a guy buy back his shooter if he bought me a comic book, a Coke, small bag of chips and ten marbles, that I get to pick from your best. Sure taught me alot about being real back then. If you are a good shot, don't brag, if you are smart, don't put people down and if you want friends don't try to best them all the time then. It truely does pay to be humble in life. 8) That goes double if you can back it with experienced reality, as I like to call that move.

and Antman, good info on the game names there buddy. Never heard of most of those. Chase was the game I sharpened my eye on back then. PeeWees is the name we used up here, as well as in your old neighborhood. Neat! Kool thread! 8)

Here's a (sorry) fuzzyish picture of a few of my baby boomer cuties which you've inspired me to dig out with your great post Maureen. I'll take a few new picks soon to add maybe. Anyone else got a marbles picture out there they'd like to share in here too?

Lb

 

[Monty]

"Taw" or "Tawl" was what we called our shooter marbles. They were only slightly larger than the regular marbles however because we had small hands at that age. The big marbles weren't well liked at our school. They were hard to knock out of a circle, too large to shoot and too big and heavy to carry very many around in our pockets. We use to trade marbles incessantly and some hard bargains were made sometimes over several days bartering. My favorite was a "bumble bee", yellow with black stripes around it. It was the perfect size for shooting. After hundreds if not thousands of hits against other marbles it would develope chips and would go on the trading board. Homemade marbles were bummers 'cause they all were slightly out of round and would break easy. "Steelies" would knock a chip out of your taw so they weren't allowed when shooting marbles out of a ring. We use to draw a line and lag marbles like some kids did pennies. Steelies were good for that because they would stick in the dirt and not roll very far due to their weight. The "Chase"
game we called "Chase'ems" and it was my favorite. Sometimes I could shoot a taw 15 or 20 ' over uneven terrain and hit the other guy's marble. If your opponent called "No ups" before you said, "Ups" you couldn't raise your shooting hand up to waist level to shoot. There was whole series of dos and don'ts we had to call out between shots. I had a unique shooting style where I would turn my hand almost upside down and impart a great deal of spin on my taw when I shot it. That way I developed a lot more velocity than most of the guys I played against. And with the extra spin the marble would "stick" where it hit the other marble would go flying. I remember we had only just started to notice that girls were different. But when a hot marble game was afoot we forgot all about girls. One in a while I sit down on the floor and try my famous shot to see if I still have it. I still get the velocity and spin but my aim is way off. Dang, childhood was fun! Monty

 

[AU24K]

In the 19th century book, "Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain, there is a quote "bully taw" which means a neat or cool shooter marble.
Scott

 

[larrybass]

You go, Monty man! Love yer well writin' "memory capsules" along with again, vivid pics from my past, flashing as I read... Oh, and ya, it is SO neat, that we even CAN all look back on our own childhoods again, and now through the power of TNet, we get to share all of that, with our brothers & sisters of the Wizards Wands! Man, it's GOOD to B alive! The only reason yer aim is off dear friend, is because you do not do it often enough. I'll bet it wouldn't take you a week at say 1-2 hrs a day to be pretty darn sharp again!

DaddyTopcat, your reference to Twain is excellent. 8) Sure confirms Sonny's recall! Go Sunnyman! That just could be one of the earliest references to Cool that I can recall. I also remember bacck then that if ya did good sometimes, they'd say, bully for you then. Appearantly that came from the old days when they ate a lot of so called "bully beef" and if you did good, at supper you would get more than the usual portion, if they had said, "well, bully for you, good boy" at any time during that day.

Here's a pic of those "halfpints" that you described for us all there, Mr. Ant! That term has been stashed away in these ol braincells fer a long, long time. Thanx Antman, for pullin' them out of those dark ol recesses of mine!


Man, way KOOL Post Maureen!

Lb

 

[Huntin' 59er]

When I was a marble-playing kid back in the "old days", we called the big marbles "Jumbos". The game we played the most was called "Poison". I can't remember much about how it was played. But I do remember that it was played with four holes dug into the ground. Does bring back some good memories.

Huntin' 59er

 

[Monty]

My grade school principal was a genius. I once got swatted for getting mud on my shoes. I walked to school and the schoolyard was solid mud and there wasn't any sidewalk! My Mom called the guy and told him what an idiot he was and he gave me a wide berth the rest of the year. Mom had a tongue like a bullwhip and she would lash heck out of you if you misbehaved. Never had to give a spanking. But Dad had a belt! Guess that's what saved me from a life of crime? Monty

 

[larrybass]

Really ,eh Montyman, Pretty hard to find an intelligent principal back in those days, never mind a bright...teacher. Thank the Lord, there were a few good ones mixed in there, at least to keep some of us interested in our various interests in life. It still amazes me to this day sometimes, how we all somehow seemed to have made it through all that, despite all that negative and sometimes, pretty scary poop, to boot, from our lives of yesteryear. 8)

Where ya from again, 59er? I somehow, kinda vaugly recall that word, being used once in awhile back then, where I was shooting the odd Croakie for Croakie match, I might have unknowingly been playing fer, in fact, a Jumbo. 8) Thanx for firing up this thread with your kool recollection details.

Just to add a Wee bit more color, in here on your great post Maureen, here's a wee pic of some, "PeeWees", which seems to be the name agreed upon most in here, for these little glass (marble) lovelys. Hope ya'll Dig 'em! 8)

* C'mon friends, somebody else must have a marble or three hanging around.? They are fairly common up here in KanuksVille, where I'm detecting.

lb

 

[Huntin' 59er]

Larrybass, you ask where I was from. I'm from near Houston, Texas.

Huntin' 59er

 

[Dharmacy]

Some marbles I have found while detecting:

D.

 

[larrybass]

Yaaa, now THAT'S what I'm talkin' about!

Awesome pic there Dharmacy! 8) Musta been a lot of kids playin' marbles down Georgia way, since even way back in the day, eh! I think I even see a clay marble or two in there as well. Fantastic! THANK YOU, Harmacy man for sharing that very lovely group of little round treasures with all of us here to-day buddy! That's a very LARGE part of what TNet is all about my friend. Good people, sharing good things with other good people, because it feels good when you do it. Like the old saying goes, if it feels good, DO IT!

Thanx 59er for mentioning your home state, 'cause seeing as everyone knows that things are just always BIGGER in Texas, it makes perfect sense to me now, why you called those big beautys, JUMBOS! Now you got me wondering about the game with the 4 holes, ya got me there friend. Anyone else here in the forum remember the 4 hole game? C'mon now, spill the beans if you've got a memory or 2 kickin' around in there somewhere.

Maureen did you find a picture of any of your marbles for us yet?

lb