Lost my Marbles

[Cheshire Cat]

Did you play Marbles as a kid? I grew up in the 50's and 60's and me and my mates played marbles for hours. But what was your local name for them? Our was galleys (not sure of the spelling).

 

[Clint]

Marbles for me! We used to play on the old cast iron drain cover with the round recessed handle points...the game being to scatter an equal amount of marbles or value of marbles on the grid and proceed to pot them into the handle recess..you kept going until you missed,last one in the hole wins the lot! The decider of who sent first was whowever called "foggy first shot"...why I don't know...
Marbles had various values...

 

[samale]

Marley's

 

[Cheshire Cat]

We dug a hole a played either oners, twoers etc the person to put the last marble in the hole won the lot.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Marbles here.

Little known fact the term "knuckle down" came from the game of marbles.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Bit off topic but this is brilliant -

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Brilliant Chippy he's using balls (what people called ball bearings) we occasionally had these to play with. My first job after university was working for RHP bearings in Newark so I know about balls.

 

[Clint]

Ball bearings... steelies!
The white ones... Chinas.
Small,clear glass with a coloured bit..oners,twice the size,two'ers.
Anything unusual could be worth X5 or whatever the owner valued it at...

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Ball bearings... steelies!

That's what we called them Clint.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Ball bearings... steelies!
The white ones... Chinas.
Small,clear glass with a coloured bit..oners,twice the size,two'ers.
Anything unusual could be worth X5 or whatever the owner valued it at...

Talk Like a Mibster
To the layman, a marble is just a marble. But if you're an experienced player, you probably have a half-dozen slang terms to describe the sphere in front of you.

Marbles usually earn their nickname based upon what they look like, what they're used for, or the material used to make them.

For example, "aggies" are marbles that are made from agate, a type of stone.

An "alley" can be a marble made of alabaster, but it can also be another term for a "shooter" or "taw," the large marble used to knock around the smaller ones, which are sometimes called "mibs" or "ducks."

"Bumblebees" are yellow and black striped.

"Jaspers" are common, blue marbles made from glazed or unglazed china.

"Onionskins" are glass marbles with swirls of layered colors that extend over the length of the marble. "Sulphides" are semi-opaque glass marbles that usually contain a small figured in the middle. Sometimes the figurine is an animal, a character (like Santa Claus), or even a real person (like Teddy Roosevelt, at left). And if you can spot any of these marbles on sight, you're probably a "mibster," a term for someone who plays marbles.

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/29486/brief-history-marbles-including-all-marble-slang

 

[Clint]

The frosted glass..a glass alley or glass eye..

 

[samale]

Ball bearings... steelies!
The white ones... Chinas.
Small,clear glass with a coloured bit..oners,twice the size,two'ers.
Anything unusual could be worth X5 or whatever the owner valued it at...

That's what I remember them as

 

[Clint]

A double size China would be a china-bonker...

 

[The Baron]

Ww called Marbles "Taws"
the steel ball bearings were called "Bonkers"
the glass marbles which were solid milky glass sometimes mixed colours were called "Flossies"

 

[Chippy_Tea]

bonker.

You couldn't use that in a kids game now

 

[Clint]

I think I got some very old clay or stone marbles I found "eyes only" while out metal detecting..I also found a ceramic,blue eye!

 

[cushyno]

Didn't used to play much but we did collect and swap them. We had:

• Dobs - twice the size
• Butes - white and swirly
• Bute-dobs - yes, you guessed it!
• Steelies - same as the rest of you, ball bearings.
• Tigers - clear with what looked like many yellow or orange stripes.

 

[chopps]

Dobs - twice the size

Dobbers here. Bringing back memories this thread

 

[Cptn_Needa]

Oilies had a finish like spilled oil
Dutch Oilies were semi-opaque oilies
Squids were like your standard marble but with finer strands

 

[Fireside Ales Homebrewery]

I didn’t grow up with marbles, but I am glad that I grew up in a generation were kids still collected stuff and played games together.
I remember tazos or pogs growing up in the 90s. They where discs that each had a point value. You played against each other to win the other players Tazos.
Shame kids these days just gravitate towards the nearest Mobile phone.