Games: Marbles
Marble History: A popular game that everyone is familiar with. This game is more than 3000 years old. In the ancient Egyptian tombs, clay marbles were discovered. Archaeologists have found marbles on the other side of the Atlantic in Mexico and parts of the USA that was dated back to 100 B.C.

Marbles were being mass produced by the 19th Century. Most marbles today are made of glass when they used to be made of clay, bone, polished nuts and stones, and of course marble.

In 1902, the inventor of the revolutionary glass-marble-making-machine, Martin F. Christensen, was able to design equipment that automated the marble-making process; glass imitation agates could be produced faster than Elias Greiner Vetters Shon's equipment. The United States Government sent a patent to the M.F. Christensen and Son Company on October 24, 1905 for the invention of the glass-marble-making-machine.
In year 1988, Mark Randall and Dennis Webb explained that this equipment utilized a pair of wheels with semi-circular grooves that moved in opposite directions from their starting position.

Later in 1905, Martin F. Christenson and his son Charles moved to Stuebenville, Ohio to open their business; purchasing the failed Navarre Glass Marble Company's factory. They hired several of their former employees, including Horace C. Hill, whom was the M.F. Christensen & Son Company founder who later embezzled money, corporate records, and copied a design for a new marble-forming machine then being perfected by M.F. Christensen and applied for a patent under his own name and later arrested in 1915 and sentenced for 15 years.
The company operated successfully until December of 1917 when they were forced to close their business with the event of a severely cold winter which depleted the supply of natural gas. The M.F. Christensen and Son Company would never be able to reopen.

Before Horace C. Hill was arrested, he left the M.F. Christensen and Son Company in 1910 to start his own Marble company called the Akro Agate company. They started out by purchasing marbles from the M.F. Christensen and Son Company, packaging them into small boxes and bags and selling them to department stores, making quite a profit.
Thier business profited so well and became so popular that they moved their business and began manufacturing marbles using newly designed equipment by Horace C. Hill.
On March 23, 1911 the Akro Agate Company applied for their now-famous "Akro Agate" trademark.5 months later it was registered with the United States Government.

In 1914, the Akro Agate Company moved from Akron, Ohio to Clarksburg, West Virginia where supplies of natural gas and sand were abundant. They company did even more business when effects of the First World War and the automation of the marble making industry.

Horace C. Hill died in 1916 and his partners, Gilbert C. Marsh and George T. Rankin began the Akro Agate Company and hired a new plant foreman by the name of John F. Early. He would bring more important design changes to Hill's equipment. The Akro Agate Company was the largest marble producer in the world come the 1920's. The company's production capacity doubled in 1932 with John F. Early's patent. From 1910 through 1951 the company was the most successful of the early machine-made glass marble companies.

When the actual game of marbles was brought to America, it was as big as baseball with little boys and girls in the 1920's and 30's. Berry Pinks, also known as the "Marble King" used his Marble King Company to help organize over 300 newspapers that held annual marble tournaments. Children competed in their local town, state, and then to National Marbles Tournament which is still held in Wildwood, new Jersey.

How to Play Marbles: There are many games using marbles, some are very old. They break down into two types - ones in which you try to knock your opponent's marbles with your own (and so win them) and ones in which you try to hit a target, eg roll your marble through a hoop or into a hole. You do this by rolling, throwing or knuckling your marble.

Playing the game TAW: The aim is to hit your opponent's marbles out of the circle. Sometimes the circle can be as large as 10 feet (3 metres) across.

Cherry pit - In this game you try to roll marbles into holes in the ground. Cherry pit was described by Shakespeare.
Nineholes - In this game of skill you try to fire your marble through numbered arches and so earn points.

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