Grew up in the late 50’s-and 60’s. Marbles were a fun schoolyard game. Unfortunately they were better slingshot ammo. I did shoot my older brother in the butt one day with a wristrocket, paid for that one dearly.
we also used to take an old steel sprinkler head ( before pop-up heads) with steel 4” nipple, load a firecracker in where the fuse came out the nozzle. Load in a marble, light the fuse, and wham! Used a cottonwood tree as a target, so it was soft enough for the marble to imbed in it.
didn’t start collecting until I got some Vacor meteors from my MIL when she passed in 1998 or so.