marbles

loismustdie

hey i was in a shop in galway that sold marbles (remember the play things when you were a kid) and they had a sign on them saying 'old fashioned marbles'. weird isn't it, that something we played with is deemed old fashioned




just realsided this is a pointless thread but i've already pressed the 'submit new thread button'

Paddy20

Re; Marbles,

Not that pointless a thread. It reminded me of when I came home from the UK in 1987. I was visiting a favourite relation when she produced a bag of used marbles, stating "You left these behind here over 40 years ago, and I kept them for you".

I could not believe it, my marbles back again. I even recognised them and all the memories came flooding back. I always loved my treasured marbles, and now they are one of my most cherished reminders of my childhood.:)

P. :ninja:

sunbeam

I remember getting a few in a lucky bag (now there's another thread ) in the late 70s but I could never figure out what you were supposed to do with them.

Capt'n Midnight

You had to hit the other one on your turn. A big one was worth 3 small ones - three hits to win. Then some of the kids had steelies (ball bearings) and one of the lads father worked in CIE and they got BIG bearings - you'd have too hit it about a billion times to win..

Mark

I could not believe it, my marbles back again. I even recognised them and all the memories came flooding back.

How eerily similar to Amélie.

Exit

Marbles were class! One of my favourite games was Jackpot, where one marble would be placed near to a wall, and then a few people would try to hit the marble from a certain distance. After everyone had their shot, there'd be (for example) 6 marbles lying around, and the person who had their marble closest to the jackpot marble would have to hit the jackpot marble with all the others starting with the furthest away. If he missed one though, the turn would move to the next closest person. And it'd continue until one person hit the jackpot with the last remaining marble and would win every marble involved in the game.
I think that was the correct rules anyway.

And you had the medium sized regular marbles called Gullies, and the multicolored ones called Chinesers (of which there was the regular white ones, and then the cool blue ones, and I once won a really cool red one!). I'm sure there were ones called Pearls, but I can't remember what they looked like (could've been the blue Chinesers). And the giant marbles were called King Kongs.

And thanks for reminding me of lucky bags! They were brilliant when I was a kid. Little bollixes now with their Nokia's don't know what they missed!

Paddy20

Mark,

Quote:- " How eerily similar to Amelie. " end quote.
Probably showing my ignorance !, but I do not get it

Whaddya mean ?...

P.:dunno: :ninja:

Dr. Loon

Marbles were great. I used to have a gian steely that would literally smash other marbles to smithereens. Ah the laughs. My favourites were the weird looking oily ones. They looked poisonous or something.

The_B_Man

im just rememberin all the names now like milky ways and coca cola streak and cats eyes. we called the big ones "gullys" or something! actually, im not sure they were the official names but its wat we called them.

i cant believe nobody has mentioned "Chinks". they were the white ones that werent see through and had a streak goin through them.

Originally posted by Mark
How eerily similar to Amélie.

i thought he was takin the piss out of "Hook" with robin williams?

BoB_BoT

Originally posted by Paddy20
Mark,

Quote:- " How eerily similar to Amelie. " end quote.
Probably showing my ignorance !, but I do not get it

Whaddya mean ?...

P.:dunno: :ninja:

It's a french film, really good actually, you should watch it.

dazberry

Originally posted by The_B_Man

i cant believe nobody has mentioned "Chinks". they were the white ones that werent see through and had a streak goin through them.

Like Exit mentioned above, we called them Chinesers. Called the big ones gullys too thou'. At the time my 'ol lad worked in Fiat so he used to get me steelies. Marbles rocked!

D.

BoB_BoT

I used to love Marbles, then my friend stuck one of them up his nose, he had to go to the doctor, it was funny.

vicwatson

This thread is from 2004, can we resurrect it?

Anyone remember some of the games of marbles played in Dublin all those years ago ?

Degsy

Exit wrote: »

Marbles were class! One of my favourite games was Jackpot, where one marble would be placed near to a wall, and then a few people would try to hit the marble from a certain distance. After everyone had their shot, there'd be (for example) 6 marbles lying around, and the person who had their marble closest to the jackpot marble would have to hit the jackpot marble with all the others starting with the furthest away. If he missed one though, the turn would move to the next closest person. And it'd continue until one person hit the jackpot with the last remaining marble and would win every marble involved in the game.
I think that was the correct rules anyway.

And you had the medium sized regular marbles called Gullies, and the multicolored ones called Chinesers (of which there was the regular white ones, and then the cool blue ones, and I once won a really cool red one!). I'm sure there were ones called Pearls, but I can't remember what they looked like (could've been the blue Chinesers). And the giant marbles were called King Kongs.

And thanks for reminding me of lucky bags! They were brilliant when I was a kid. Little bollixes now with their Nokia's don't know what they missed!

Dont forget there were also marbles called chalkies(made of baked clay),blindies(no patterns and usually opaque),catseyes(just one line running through them) and steelies(ballbearings..they could vary hugely in size..i had one the size of a shotput,it could never be "won" by anything else.

I remember years ago finding some marbles that i had when i was a kid that i'd gotten from my grandfather and some of them were marbles taken from victorian glass bottles called "Codds",also some of the chalkies were the sort of thing you find in prehistoric tombs..amazing to think kids were playing with stuff that was that old.

stephen_k

Wow we had totally different names for the marbles where I grew up... they weren't Chinesers they were Japs, the larger ones were Gullies... So from memory you had

Ordinaries (clear with coloured swirl in the middle)
Japs (white opaque, with a coloured stripe on the outside)
Bullseyes (black, opaque with coloured stripe on outside)
Steelies (ballbearings)
Crystals (clear glass of various colours, normally white)
cant remember what we called the "oily" ones mentioned above??

Sizes were small (cant remember what we called the smallest marbles) then Gully then Emperors

Aim of the game was to hit your opponants marble, depending on the worth of your marble you had to hit the marble more than once (this was agreed before game started, and in reality was complete arbitary) Japs were worth more than ordinaries, gullies worth more than smalls, etc...

Game would start by knocking the chosen marbles together and then you would throw your marble a distance away saying "Yours"... Your opponant would then either try to hit your marble or decline taking a shot and throwing his marble saying "Yours" this back and forth of saying "Yours" would continue until someone plucked up the courage to take a shot... When you took your shot you had to counter the ability of your opponant to block your shot by declaring "no blockies".... If you didn't he could declare "blockies" and stand with his heels together behind his marble... If you missed and the marbles were close together this then gave you the opportunity to delare "dabs" (picking up the marble and throwing like a dart) or "high dabs" (picking up and dropping straight down from your eye) this could be countered by shouting "No Dabs" or "No High Dabs" before your opponant and usually resulted in many disputes as to who said what first.

Matches wouldn't end until a marble was hit the requisit amount of times or you were called in for your dinner