Marble names

To follow on from an office conversation

We got

singles
doubles
pots
dobbers
pot dobbers
steelies
squigglies
clearies
spagetti junctions
leeds uniteds
pot dobber steelies

what else?

Fivers and tenners (larger than singles and doubles)
Bollies (from ball bearings I would guess, hence the same as steelies?)

singles
queens
kings
chinese
glass alley!

Bloodshot – Translucent red ones, I think Queen size
Bluemoon – Same as Bloodshots, but blue.

Frenchies – the white ones with colours on the surface
Blocks – (Kings or Queens)
Clearsies – plain glass

What new language is this?

Ord – ordinary – regular marbles.
Dobber – the big ones.
Catsie – corruption of “cat’s eye” I think – those milky white ones.
Crystal – fully clear apart from bubbles
Spider – a bit like a crystal, but with white spider-leg stripes.
Spaghetti – bit like a Spider but more squiggly internals.

Combinations were possible, a dobber-catsie for example, and we had a highly complicated trade rate which we all knew was gospel fact but in hindsight was probably made up entirely by seven-year-old marble shark Chris Bartlett depending on what marbles he had in his bag and what he wanted.

oilies and chinas

Sizes in order (as far as I can remember)

littlies
jacks
biggies
queenies
Kings
ali bompas (these were rare)

Then the types:
normal
cat’s eye
joker’s lips
zulu
clearie
spotted dick
oilies
ball bearians (actually ball bearings but we seemed to have a hard time getting that right)
EDIT and chinas too yes

Now, how did you play the game? When we did it you had to hit the other person’s marble for a win, but the ratio was decided on value. So to win a biggie with a littlie you had to hit them twice but they only had to hit you once, so you’d say ‘twice-once’ at the beginning of the game and you’d tap him twice and he’d tap you once, like boxers touching gloves I suppose. The ratios for the sizes were well recognised but there’d be plenty of argument with regards the value of the specials.

Now my memory gets dim here, but there were loads of special moves you could call, like if he landed really close to you but didn’t hit you could call ‘drops’ where you stood up and dropped the marble on his. there were many of these calls but I’ve compleltey forgotten.

Ooh, I forgot oilies.
And steelies.

oilies and chinas

I wonder if Carol Decker was a big marbles player as a kid? That’d explain it.

There was also a particular “season” for playing marbles, and you laughed at anyone caught playing out of seasons.

I think it was just after the conker season.

Why has no-one mentioned Juicers yet?

galleon wines – named after several off licences who had pale green and white logos

milkies – were the white non transparent ones

Was Doughney just a Birmingham thing then …

Marble naming conventions obvioulsy change with time and geography.

Probably a PHD thesis in that for somebody.

The only two I can remember are spesh and biggy spesh….but I don’t recognise any of the names above, so maybe somewhatslightlydazed has a point! Early 80s, West Mids…..

I was in the west mids too, I remember the name special but I don’t recall what they were. I think maybe ones with a flaw?

Tattie-mashers (anything bigger than a normal marble)
Clays (made of clay…).

Quite fancy a game now!

Cats eyes and dogs eyes. One was blue and one was green but I can’t remember which. My cat at the time had one blue and one green eye so that confused things for me.

One of the guys in our school had a french boule in his marble bag. The notorious one-hundred-er steelie. A weapon on mass destruction.

Now what about game names.

I only remember ‘Shovesies’

My memory is failing me.

We called the china ones squids and the clear ones bottle washers. Queen and King size were the biggest ones, the most sort after was a ginger King size marble that was very rare – in my school anyway.

Guppies
Emperors
Spirals though that one is a bit hazy.

We only had 2 names: dobbers (the big ones) and Chinese (white opaque ones with coloured patterns)

I can only remember ‘dobbers’.

My primary school briefly banned marbles. Not because of ‘elf ‘n’ safety but because it was causing too many arguments. Someone had a (rather beautiful) single opaque tomato red dobber confiscated (and deposited in the bin by the teacher). Pretty sure I still have it after I ‘rescued’ it from the bin.

Marbles ??

PAH !!

TORS in Leeds when I were a lad ….

Blood-alley

When I was a sprog, waaaay back in the 60’s marbles had the generic name of ‘muggles’. Can’t remember individual names. (well can you blame me, it’s a sodding long time ago!)

big marbles were Trons at my school, I assumed that was what everyone called them, I guess not

I’m sure there was one called a ‘speckled granny’ – large and clear with specks all over the surface.

Also ‘pearly’ and ‘blue moon’ or maybe I’ve made them up…

‘big docker’ (I think a bastardisation of ‘big dobber’) which was the big one that cleared the decks

Birmingham, mid Seventies…I’m sure we called the large ones Gobbies

Liverpool we had the jazz and the jazz-dink