American Toy Marble Museum

                                                                                           Lock 3 Park, Downtown Akron, Ohio

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    How Marbles are Made 

    They are now manufactured in immense quantities in Saxony for exportation to the United States, India, and China. The common marble is manufactured of hard stone quarried near Coburg, Saxony, and the process is practically the same as that used by nature in grinding out the little round pebbles originally used by the children of long ago.

     Nature, though constantly busy, is slow. We do not want to wait a thousand or maybe a million years for her to get our marbles ready. Our fingers might be too old to shoot with them, so we adopt nature's principles, but make more haste. In place of frost man uses a hammer to break the stone into fragments.

     The hammer breaks the hard stone into small squares, or, more properly, cubical shaped blocks. These are placed on a large millstone one hundred or two hundred at a time. The millstone has several grooves cut in it in the form of rings, one ring inside another, or, as your Geometry would put it, in the form of concentric circles. Over this a block of oak of the same size as the lower stone rests on the small square fragments and is kept turning while water flows upon the bottom stone.

     Power is supplied by a water-wheel, and when the machinery is set in motion the little cubes are compelled, by the pressure and motion of the upper piece, to roll over and over in their circular tracks, and round and round and round they travel like circus horses in a ring. In fifteen minutes' time the mill does what nature takes years to accomplish, and the little blocks of stone are turned into small stone balls. These are the unfinished marbles and need smoothing.

     One such mill can turn out two thousand marbles a week, and if there are four or five sets of millstones running, eight thousand or ten thousand a week can be manufactured.

     In another part of the establishment the water-wheel turns a number of wooden barrel-shaped receptacles, something like the copper ones used for making candy in this country. Inside the wooden casks are hard stone cylinders. These revolving cylinders smooth the marbles, which are compelled by the motion of the machinery to keep up a constant rubbing against each other and against the stone cylinder. When they are smooth enough the dust made by the last process is emptied from the casks and fine emery powder substituted. This gives finish and polish to the marble.

    Common Marbles 

    The small, gray marbles are what the Western boys call "commies" or "combos." They are often painted bright colors, but the paint soon wears off and they look like little dried clay balls. They are not much valued, and five " commies " usually represent the value of one " plaster."

     The Century Dictionary gives an "alley" as one of the definitions of a marble. On what ground it bases this information I am unable to state. "Agate," "meg," "duck" or "real" would be just as good a definition. " Meg " or " duck " would be better, inasmuch as, in different sections of the country, both of these terms are used to define marbles of any description; while "alley " in almost all parts of the country means a particular kind of marble.

    The Alley 

    In some parts of Ohio and Kentucky the marble designated by the latter name is a small, hard sphere with a yellowish-white ground, streaked with wavy lines of bluish green. These are not the same as the " Croton alley " or “Jasper " of New York. The latter, I believe, are made of glazed and unglazed china marbled with blue, and are generally larger marbles than the so-called alleys of the West.

    The China and Plaster 

    In Cincinnati and the adjoining cities of Covington and Newport, Ky., a china is what its name implies-china. This term, when I was a boy, was used only to designate a glazed china; the unglazed ones we called plasters, from their resemblance to that substance.

     Both of the latter marbles are decorated with lines of various colors, sometimes crossing each other, forming plaids, and again arranged in circles and called bull's eyes. They are made in wooden molds and are dried, baked, and painted like any other chinaware.

    The Bumbo and Peawee 

    "Bumbo," "bumboozer" or "bowler" are names applied to very large marbles of any description. A " peawee " is the name used for any very small marble.

    Crystals 

    is a general name applied in many parts of the country to all glass marbles, including "opals," "glimmers," "bloods," "rubies," etc. They are all very beautiful, but their beauty is only skin deep, and when used much they become dull and full of nicks. Some of these glass marbles are called "agates " in the East, and hence the genuine agate is called a " real," to distinguish it from the counterfeit glass one. Glass marbles are made by melting the glass and pressing the hot substance in polished metal molds, the halves of which fit so neatly that no trace of a seam or line is visible on the glass to mark where the parts of the mold join.

    The "Lucky Taw" 

    Our lucky taw, or the marble we used when a skilful shot was required, was carefully selected for its, weight and symmetry, and was generally an agate or real:" Agates are beautiful gems of agate or carnelian, varying in color from a smoky gray to a blood red, or variegated with mottlings or stripes of different colors. Agates are made into marbles at Oberstein. The workmen are very skilful. The stone is first broken into fragments of the proper size, and then, by means of a hammer, clipped into rude balls; these balls are then worn down on the face of a large grindstone, and are managed with great dexterity by the workmen, who in a few minutes bring them into perfect spheres, after which they are polished by hand on lapidary wheels.

    Cunny Thumb or Scrumpy Knuckled 

     

    If Little Lord Fauntleroy played marbles, any boy could tell you how he would shoot. He would hold his hand vertically; place his taw or shooter against his thumb-nail and his first finger. He would shoot "cunny thumb style," or “scrumpy knuckled." The thumb would flip out weakly (Fig. 5), and the marble would roll on its way.

    Tom Sawyer would lay the back of his fist on the ground or on his mole-skin " knuckle dabster," hold his taw between the first and second joints of the second finger and the first joint of the thumb, the three smaller fingers closed and the first finger partially open (Fig. 6). From this animated ballista the marble would shoot through the air for four or five feet, alighting on one of the ducks in the middle of the ring, sending it flying outside, while the taw would spin in the spot vacated by the duck. Tom or Huck Finn would display as much skill with his taw as an expert billiard player would with the ivory balls.

    A Southern Way 

    Down in Dixie I have frequently seen grown men, white and black, playing marbles, and one or two of the expert players held their taw on their second finger, holding the second finger back with their thumb; then suddenly removing the thumb and straightening out the finger, they sent the marble, like a bullet, straight to the mark. This manner of shooting must require much practice, and I doubt if it is more accurate than the one just described as Tom's method. Some boys, skilful in the game, squeeze the marble they shoot with between the thumb and the forefinger, wetting it with their mouth to make it slip quickly.

    The Arabian Way of Shooting 

    The little Arabs have a curious manner of shooting. They place their taw in the hollow between the middle and the forefinger of the left hand, the hand being flat on the ground with the fingers closed. The forefinger of the right hand is then pressed firmly on the end joint of the middle finger, which pushes the middle finger suddenly aside, and the forefinger slips out with sufficient force to propel the shooter very accurately.

     There are innumerable games of marbles in vogue in different sections of the country. I have watched the boys play in every State east of the Mississippi River, and between the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Northern Lakes, and will describe the most popular games.

     

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