Marble (toy)
Marble (toy)
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Marble (toy)

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Marble (toy)

A marble is a small spherical object often made from glass, clay, steel, plastic, or agate. These toys can be used for a variety of games called marbles, as well being placed in marble runs or races, or created as a form of art. Sizes may vary, but usually range from about 0.5 to 3.5 cm (0.2 to 1.4 in) in diameter. They are often collected, both for nostalgia and for their aesthetic colors. In northern England, the game and objects are called "taws", with larger marbles being called "bottle washers", named after the use of a marble in Codd-neck bottles.

In the early twentieth century, small balls of stone from about 2500 BCE, identified by archaeologists as marbles, were found by excavation near Mohenjo-daro, in a site associated with the Indus Valley civilization. In modern India the game is called "kanche". Marbles are often mentioned in Roman literature, as in Ovid's poem "Nux" (which mentions playing the game with walnuts), and there are many examples of marbles from excavations of sites associated with Chaldeans of Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt. They were commonly made of clay, stone or glass. Marbles arrived in Britain, imported from the Low Countries, during the medieval era.

In 1503, the town council of Nuremberg, Germany, limited the playing of marble games to a meadow outside the town.[unreliable source?] The name "marble", used for the little toy balls, comes from this region and era, and refers to such balls being made of marble. At this point, marbles were made in mills and quarries by polishing small fragments of real stone like marble, agate, alabaster, limestone, and even brass.

It is unknown where marbles were first manufactured. A German glassblower invented marble scissors, a device for making marbles, in 1846. Ceramic marbles entered inexpensive mass production in the 1870s.[citation needed]

The game has become popular throughout the US and other countries. The first mass-produced toy marbles (clay) made in the US were made in Akron, Ohio, by S. C. Dyke, in the early 1890s. Some of the first US-produced glass marbles were also made in Akron by James Harvey Leighton. In 1903, Martin Frederick Christensen—also of Akron—made the first machine-made glass marbles on his patented machine. His company, M. F. Christensen & Son Co., manufactured millions of toy and industrial glass marbles until they ceased operations in 1917. The next US company to enter the glass marble market was Akro Agate. This company was started by Akronites in 1911, but located in Clarksburg, West Virginia. Today, there is only one American-based toy marble manufacturer: Marble King, in Paden City, West Virginia.

Various games can be played with marbles.

One game popular in the United Kingdom and United States is ring taw (or "ringer"), where a ring is drawn on the ground and a number of small marbles placed within it. Players take turns to flick a larger "taw" marble at these marbles, attempting to knock them out of the ring.

In kanche (from South Asia), players prepare for the game by standing behind a line and trying to flick their marble towards a designated hole, with the player who manages to flick their marble closest to the hole getting the chance to go first in the game. The marbles are all then placed in the center of a circle, with each player getting one striking marble and the chance to flick their marble in an attempt to strike the circle-marbles out of the circle. Each marble thus displaced is acquired by the striker, and once all the marbles have been struck out of the circle, the player with the most marbles wins the game.

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