Lost my Marbles

[UKSkydiver]

I used to play marlies as a kid.

Mostly small glass ones with a swirl or two of colour. There were also larger ones and the word gobbies has just jumped into my head.

Steelies were not that common.

My dad managed to get the innards from and old fork lift truck bearing. Effectively a massive 3" steelie.

You should have seen the faces of the kids I played with.

 

[Binkei Huckaback]

Marbles here.

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

Knuckle down possibly comes from an even earlier, similar game the Romans bought with them which invovled throwing small sheep bones.

 

[trummy]

I use the lads marbles now - to weigh down the muslin bags I put the additional hops that come with beer kits in

 

[damienair]

I use the lads marbles now - to weigh down the muslin bags I put the additional hops that come with beer kits in

Same here. My 2 boys have a box full of marbles. I grabbed 6 of them yesterday and sterilised them and threw them into a muslin hop sock to dry hop my brew.
I was a kid of the late 70’s and 80’s. I had marbles, but lost a good few on the School playground. I wasn’t very good with marbles but every autumn I was king of the Conkers. I took that challenge seriously and always had a good stable of pedigree Conkers.

 

[chthon]

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).

At my side of the pond, the region of Ostend, we actually called them marbles. This had to do with the fact that for more than hundred years, Ostend was an important port between the continent and the UK. The influence of English sailors had a very big influence on the local dialect. The Dutch words are "knikkers" or "stuiters".

And by the way, yes we played with them in the 70's. And even my daughter, when she was in primary school (the 2010s), played with marbles.

 

[MmmBeer]

The white ceramic ones we called Chinas and were worth twice as much as glass ones. The large ones were worth 4 times as much as the small ones and we called them Fourers (imaginative I know). Ones with two or more colours through them we called Pricks and were worth twice that of a single coloured one.

So if you had a large ceramic one with two colours in it, that was a China prick fourer, worth 16 single coloured small glass ones.

 

[Graynighty]

We called them Ollie's too in Liverpool as well. We called ball bearings Steelies and they were the most valuable then there were large green glass ones we called cats eyes. Bolllies were twice the size of Ollie's and were worth two of them. My dad did some work for Pilkingtons in St Helens and brought half a bucket of cats eyes home with him, we became the most popular kids in our street that day

 

[Obadiah Boondoggle]

"Lost my marbles"

Having been watching many of your posts - I agree with your self assessment