Dorothy Brush "Random Thoughts" Published Sept. 15, 2004

A small drawstring bag of memories ...

Many years ago my husband's mother brought us a small drawstring bag of memories from his childhood years. Inside the bag were cat's-eyes, clearies, aggies and shooters, all treasures bringing back memories of hours hunched on his knees eyeing an opponent's marbles in a dirt circle.

We put those marbles into a glass jar as an invitation to inquisitive grandchildren to ask questions about the ancient art of marbles. An even better way to acquaint youngsters with marbles is to take them to Standing Stone Park this Saturday. Three separate tournaments will be played by serious competitors. All require different skills, have their own special rules and are played on specific surfaces.

For any with the mistaken idea that marbles is just for kids, a trip to the Marble Festival will be an eye opener. Ringer is the tournament for children age 8 to 14. It is an updated version of the school yard game we remember. It is not played on dirt but concrete and has been the official game of the National Marbles Tournament held annually in Wildwood, NJ since 1922.

The other two tournaments showcase skilled players whose ages vary to even beyond age 70. Tennessee Squares is home grown and has been played for generations in northern Tennessee and southern Kentucky. It is played on a piece of carpet.

The headliner tournament features the 22nd annual National Rolley Hole Marbles championship at the park. Played on a carefully manicured dirt yard the marbles are not glass but handcrafted flint marbles needed to endure the rough play. They begin as a piece of hard flint and are shaped into a smooth orb by the wheel of a high-speed grinder guided by an experienced craftsman. He can add a variety of colorful swirls to make them as colorful as glass marbles.

There is more to marbles than games. Those that had been saved became antiques and collectors entered the picture. Decorative-glass makers in Germany and Italy produced some of the finest marbles from about 1840 to 1935. These craftsmen used leftover glass to make shooters for their own children at the end of the workday. They have been called "End of the Day" marbles and they bring a high price today.

At an antique store in New York City when collectors gathered to see an offering of antique marbles a reporter described the scene. "Collectors were scurrying around the floor, on hands and knees, like children, playing with century-old marbles, before inspecting them under a jeweler's loupe."

As authentic antique marbles became scarce a new market opened for glass blowers. The owner of a studio in California which produces art-glass said he turns out 1,000 swirls a week. Swirls or spirals are made by heating the glass rod to 2,600 degrees. Threads of colored glass are added on top and then more layers of molten glass .

Matthews Marbles created by master glassmaker Mark Matthews are displayed at many places including the Smithsonian Institution, Corning Museum of Glass and in London at Victoria & Albert Museum. It is not surprising that as marble mania increased books, magazines, newsletters and conventions devoted to marbles appeared.

Back to the Standing Stone tournament it is an interesting note that marble tournaments were popular in the 1920s. In 1929 a huge crowd watched Babe Ruth take on a famous boxer James Maloney and a champion wrestler Gus Sonneboerg in the mibster's ring on the Boston Common.

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Dorothy Copus Brush is a Fairfield Glade resident and Crossville Chronicle staffwriter whose column is published each Wednesday.