About “Lost Marbles Stories”

The US National Marbles Tournament (NMT) is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2023 – a longer existence than any other nationwide game contest for kids. Like dozens of other competitions and gatherings, the annual event has sometimes been canceled by world crises – twice by World War II, twice by COVID.

Playing marbles has been part of the American spectrum for much longer than a century. Until a few generations ago, American kids (especially boys) were all but obsessed with marbles games. Played out in alleys, streets, and playgrounds, the annual outdoor reappearance of marbles was considered a “sure sign of spring,” filling the gap between winter and summer recreation. Pennies could buy all the needed supplies, which were easy to carry and collect.

_{[from The American Boy’s Book of Sports and Games, 1864]}

Now marbles is considered a classic retro street game, like stickball or skully, a domain reserved for nostalgia nerds. Few other games, if any, were as universal as marbles in traditional kids’ street culture.

A lot of enthusiasm for the game lately has come to focus on collecting rare marbles, tournament awards, and other vintage objects of the game. I’ve tried to focus, instead, on the players – the forgotten “regular” boys and girls from all walks of life (and their mentors) whose skills at marbles earned them rare acclaim in their day. There were no Roosevelt or Vanderbilt children among them.

Behind this “Lost Marbles Stories” series is plenty of collecting – of information. Old editions of newspapers used to be hard to find, except in the libraries of cities where they were once printed. Driving cross-country several times for family reasons, I made many fun research detours to libraries and historical societies, reeling through microfilm for hours. With a growing number of online newspaper resources, the task is much easier now.

The National Marbles Tournament might never have gotten started, if it wasn’t for an ambitious New Jersey politician and a clever teenager. Read on and you’ll see why…

_{[Los Angeles Record, 1923]}