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Kingy

Yup. Kingy

Same here. Kingy or Grandad. Not sure where Grandad came from but Kingy got changed when we started playing tag but with a tennis ball thrown to make some one 'it'. It became known as 'Kingball' which quickly became 'Kingy'. Ah..... those were the days when kids were just allowed to be kids. Fun times.

I can confirm. Used to play for keepsies.

I didn’t know people had a name for it I just called it “the big one”

Same, I don't know if I'm too young for it or if it's just the area of the country but I never heard any special names for them here (Hampshire).

Yeah I am in Kent and they never really had names that I know of

Just going to leave this bbc gem [here](https://youtu.be/53w9E774fGE?si=BWP5_5nIN4EpM1Db)

Brilliant! I thought that was a sketch at first. Len has been playing with his marbles since he was a child. I suppose that's where the rest of us have gone wrong.

All the bbc docs for that era sort of have a dry piss take quality. Its like markets of britian

He has compared himself to Muhammed Ali!

"Barely a minute of the day goes by when he can't be spotted quietly manipulating his marbles at home". Ooh matron. I swear that presenter is trying to see how far he can go just because he's pissed he's been told to go make a documentaty about the marble guy.

Good God.

A dobber here in Manchester and the milky white ones were called cats eyes.

In my school a cat's eye was the clear one with some colour through the middle. A white milky one was called a pearly

Yes! This ^

Dobber in the North West. Big metal ones were Steelies.

Aye. Nowhere Wales here. Big ones were dabbers. Steelies for any size of metal one

South Wales valleys here. We called them 'Glassies'

An Aggie (Oxford)

An Aggie (other side of the Atlantic)

Also Aggie (North East England) Although Dobber is also familiar, just don’t remember what we used it to demarcate.

When I was a baby, I had big eyes. My mums cousin nicknamed me Aggie eyes.

King, and even bigger was an emperor

You played marbles with penguins? 😝

Takes me back, I remember being the first with an Emperor in my school..

Big Marble

If the Americans find this thread it's over for us.

In South Africa they were called goons.

I was hoping to find another person saying goon.

Queen and the even bigger one, King.

Tattie.. Scottish Marbles got banned at our school cause fights broke out. Wild times in the 80s!!

Also Scottish, we call it a jorrie

Also Scotland and it was called an aggie where I live

We called it a Dolder. West Lothian 1970s/80s.

Bonker

We used to just say "bonk". Glassy bonk, Steelie bonk, etc...

Ian

Dobber here too

EVERYBODY ELSE IS WRONG the big ones are Coshers and the even bigger ones are Wellsies I REPEAT, EVERYBODY ELSE IS WRONG. WRONG!

A Bully for the larger ones. We used to call the small and larger white ones Milkys.

Geordie here, we called them Bullys too.

it’s a gobby, Northamptonshire

Yeah, the size one up from a standard marble was a gobby in Birmingham too.

I remember it being a Gobby too. Also from Birmingham and marbles were a big thing when I was in primary school in the early 90's

Northampton here too, thats the only one i can remember, what were the others called?

A large was called a "Bolley" back in the day.

Australians used to call them Tombolas.

A haystack

Dosher

My big one was Jupiter coz it looked like a picture of the planet

I'm sure we used to call them planets (but maybe that was my association with the patterns on my brother's ones) We were Army kids so were from nowhere and everywhere.

Ally (Cornwall in the 70s)

As a young lad we used to play marbles at school on south Oxfordshire in the 50s. We called the big ones an Ally, just as you did in Cornwall!

Goon/gun.

It's a dobber.

A haystack when I was a boy in Northampton

Scrungy

I'm from Lancashire and it was always a dobber. A colleague from the West Midlands always said kingy.

Lancashire, Fleetwood as a kid...I think we called them Shiners. There were various China's, Bullseyes & Catseyes too. Kids basically made up the betting system ad hoc. "What will you bet me against this orange & blue China?...gotta be worthwhile though". Happy days.

I grew up in Kirkham in the 1980s, so it's interesting that the names are different in towns that are so close to each other.

You were playing it wrong mate. Fleetwood rules all day long! Surprised me how diverse the names were in close proximity. 70's kid finger nudger here. Kirkham was an exotic place over the horizon back then.

Could be as much to do with where respective parents grew up. It was usually my Mum who set me off on games like marbles and would have naturally passed her terminology down. She was a Scot, I grew up in NE England.

You called your schoolmates colleagues? What school did you go to!

Schoolmates in Lancs called it a dobber, colleagues years later called it a kingy.

A Bonk (Essex)   (White ones were China Bonks)

King

They were called beetle crushers in my town , North Shropshire.

Grannie

Here in NZ we called them Granddaddies.

Kingy. Bomber.

In the West of Scotland the big marble is the bull and a dobber is another word for penis

I vaguely remember them being called "alleys". What I do remember is that the big metal ball bearing ones were called "bongies" (or "boingies"?).

Tommy (midlands pit village, late 80s/early 90s)

Depends how big, in Southport we had dobbers, then queens, kings and emperors. You were an absolute hero if you rocked up with an emperor steelie.

Bomber or Ally

Property of Greece?

Depends on size. I remember Kings, Queens and donkeys. We were cleaning out garage and bizarrely my favourite marble from when I was a kid was in there. I handed it to my husband saying can you put this donkey in the drawer. I might have asked him to iron his hands!

Big Barry

Dobber, white ones were called Canadian Dobber, and the very large ones Ally's.

Bomber.

Keith

Oi

Cyclops or King Kong in my day.

Kingfisher if it's over about an inch across and a cat's eye. The slightly smaller ones were, obviously, queenfishers. If they weren't cat's eyes (or 'twirlies' as they were called elsewhere), they were just a large china, large clay, etc. (Surrey, 1980ish)

Dobber (clear marble) or Ozzy Dobber for the solid colour ones) Oxford

I have a vague memory of calling them 86'ers for some unknown reason or something like that. This would have been back in the 80s.

A bolster.

Ponk 70s Durham

Dobbie - West Yorkshire- - England

Bosser

Kinger (Westcountry).

A dobber wasn't a name for a marble where I'm from.

Bomber. But then we had twosies, threesies, foursies, fivesies and sixies. Although I can't remember how we graded those.

Glassy. White marbles were chinkies, and metal ones were ernies.

King or bolder

Goony

The Jack

Gallani

Shooter(US)

Bonce

A gobbie

It's called a "donka"

People used to call the glass ones- kingy or dobbers. Some kids played giant ball bearings called Steelies

Also, steel ball bearings were "bollies". I'll always remember some kid rocking up with one about 2" diameter

Largble

The creamy opaque ones were known as pearls

King Kosher. I'm sure there was a size scale peewee>oner>twoer>beachball>Queenie>King Kosher Then there was the design to consider: Galaxy, clearie, Steelie, china, pearly, Tigers, oddly I cant remember what we called the generic cats eyes marbles.

Dobber.

Kosher!

I from Aus...tombolla

Big ones were King Kongers and the even bigger ones were Wing Wongers.

Penker

Dozzer, one up in size from a kingy

Biggie and was worth 5 small ones.

A Penka. The small ones were Liggies

Big one was a Kingy and the one bigger was an emperor.

North East. Small ones were just Marbles, large ones were called Doubler or Two-er. Metal ones were called Benkers.

I just remember Geordies singing about losing their penker down the double raw.

Tyneside 70s-80s "Liggy"

A big marble. From U.S. and the clear ones were puries.

We always called them "Juggernauts". South-west (Cornwall).

A Gun (pronounced goen)

A big one was a doe and bigger than that multidoe

A glabby

To those of you who no longer have marbles. ……how old were you when you lost your marbles?

Richard 

A Dobber means smithing else in Scotland…

Mini marble Gobber or dobber Kinger

The biggie lol

Dobber !

Butt plug

Bolshy

In South Africa we called them goons

A shooter

North staffs reporting for duty. Nibs, dobbers then kingys for size. Rarely there was one between a dobber and kingy which was predictable a queeny. And metal one was an irony. Then we had milky and oilys and occasionally a blacky. Had a friend whose dad worked in a ball bearing factory. Occasionally he’d bring in a bearing that his dad took home for him but I remember once he came in with this thing the size of a tennis ball that weighed a tonne 🤣🤣 No one wanted to play against it because we thought it would smash our glassys 🤣🤣

Marblezilla

Allies, but there was a system of value a normal sized marble with three colours in it or an unusual combination could be a "Allie" too.

King or emperor

Ally Bolger.

Marbellous