Steph

Nice historical note. ... wishing the best for Dave and everyone at Jabo.

Anticlimactic postcript: There is record of Rech playing one more "world championship" match -- in September of '22. He lost, and one Francis Dinkey of West New York was declared the "marble monarch". September 8 But how did Francis Dinkey come to be in the game? No clue.

I thought I had enough articles to tell the whole story, but it was a convoluted story, and it's been a bit since I downloaded them, so now I can't recall. In any case, now I'm not seeing anything else about Rech or Markoff or Ross competing against each other. Here it is already July 9, 1922. And then sometime within the next month or so, plans had made for a more formal and better organized tournament the next year, with many cities invited in advance. Perhaps the greater New York plans fell apart. This is from an article by Armstrong Perry in The American Boy. Rech and McQuade are mentioned. Rech's New York challengers seem to have evaporated. That sort of makes sense, since Markoff had already lost a tournament to McQuade so he wasn't a contender for the national title. But did he play again? Pix from the article:

But what happened next?!?!?!

Just been having fun with the Times archives. Funny how important marbles were in the 1800's and early 1900's. The Times even imported stories from out of state. They reported on kids stealing marbles. On kids being arrested for playing marbles or playing marbles for keeps (in 1909 a judge in Washington declared keeps illegal). On marbles as gifts. 1884 was the year of the marble. 1885 was the year of the top and marbles "couldn't be given away". But in 1893 a bag of marbles would be welcome, especially if there were several 'reals' in it. Make the bag of duck or coarse linen and embroider the boy's initial on it. On marbles in a nostalgic way. On marbles in an educational and moralistic way. Rich society women apparently disapproved of marbles in 1909 but they were accused of turning their sons into mollycoddles. Public school boys had more "grit and vigor". On tournaments. How Arabian kids played marbles. On city planning, with parks for kids to play marbles. Marbles was bigtime. Oh yes, there was one about collecting marbles -- lol -- this boy had a huge collection of marbles without ever playing a game. He was loaning them and charging interest. Something like giving out 6 marbles and demanding 9 in return.

The story goes on! It is a hard battle but Buster Rech holds on in Jersey. Arrangements are made for him to defend his title in New York. Buster Ross wins in Queens. July 7 July 9

Back in the city, the competition heats up. 8-year-old Buster Ross appears to be the sentimental favorite in Queens. June 25

The games go on. Or they will when school lets out. A tournament is planned in Queens. The winner will go up against New York City's Nickey Markoff, for the Greater New York championship. June 11 Meanwhile, in New Jersey. Jacob Goldberg wins the statewide competition while Buster Rech watches. But now Buster will fight again. June 18

And Frank McQuade of Baltimore is the winner! Is this the end of Buster's reign? Was he too proud? May 21 (click to enlarge)

A new "world championship" tournament was arranged. This time the players would meet in Philadephia. Red Stoddard will represent Philadelphia. Frank McQuade plays for Baltimore. Nickey Markoff is the champ of New York City. And Marjorie "Babe" Ruth will play for Newark -- because no boys answered the mayor's call. But Jersey City is protective of its champion. Why should Buster have to prove himself in Philadelphia? He is already champion of the world. Challengers should come to New Jersey. If Buster doesn't compete he would just be "the obscure champion of Jersey City", replied the rotary club of Philadelphia. May 20

Buster's challenge was taken up by Washington D.C. Their champ was Mike Troiano. More stories are told in the Washington Post, but there's a fee for the articles so they'll have to wait. lol (The NY times archives are free from 1851 to 1922.) May 14 Buster beat Mike. He was now "officially" the world champion. But the excitement wasn't over.

The summer of 1922 was very exciting. This is the game which led to the annual national marbles tournament which started in 1923. April 21 (click to enlarge) After winning this game in Jersey City, Buster Rech challenged all comers. The drama was reported in the newspapers. It got quite complicated. Rules were being made up as they went. Champs of different cities played different games, so how could they compete fairly to see who was really best?

Starting with the humorous one, then in chronological order. Didn't include all the times kids were hit by cars while playing marbles in the street. 1906 1851 1858 1874 1877 1880 1886 1903

Anacortes seemed to have reason for optimism in 1991. A 1990 article had discussed the improvements they were making, new equipment they had ordered. Then in early 1992, a few months after the following article ran, marble production ceased. They could still have been profitable -- they had enough orders to keep them going -- but according to AMMM, the marble side of the business was negatively impacting the more successful rope making side of the business. So, they stopped making marbles.

Made in Japan for sale in South America: From the auction description: (source)

Definitely not too early.

Blessings to his family. As loved as Larry was ... is ..., I do have hope that they will still find joy this season.

Gorgeous!

Love the Berry Pink revival. LOL Hard to know what to say after the info you've shared. Wonder why the guy ended the auction early. Why not wait that extra day to see if anyone would beat the $1500? One of my favorite parts of the auction is pretty trivial -- the part of the letter which says "3 line cleary, and a root beer cleary". I especially like that "3 line cleary" part. I hope it really is the marble shown. It'd be cool to have a kid's name for it.

Medical use: Grasp/Release exercises in physical therapy. semi-historical tidbit: In a 1978 newsletter, marble king was recommended as an economical source: "sells 5/8 inch cat’s eye or rainbow marbles, in boxes of 2100 for about $10.00."

Watertown is upstate NY. About 300 miles from NYC. Still "in the neighborhood" for a salesman I guess. mmm hmmm, a drawstring bag sounds good. The item # is still a puzzle if it is indeed from the MK catalog. The 75 would be for the number of marbles. The 5000 would still likely put it after 1962 though. Would the drawstring poly bag have said Berry Pink Industries in the late 60's, early 70's? Well, it was at least in the company address in the paperwork. And maybe "Berry Pink marbles" was the traditional name for that bag in that region dating back to the days when Pink was a celebrity. "Berry Pinks" is more fun to say than Tournament Assortment. My wild guess was that it might have been a commemorative promotional item with his name on it. Maybe only in the NY area since that's where he was most famous. (lol @ me) (Al, does that bag have a dark stain on the back?)

Anyone know what type of marble was for sale here? 75 Berry Pink Marbles for 49 cents. The date was May 19, 1973. The No. 5075 in the ad fits what appears to fit the trend of the Marble King catalog sheets in AMMM. The highest item no. showing on the 1954 sheet is No. 1008 for a cool Big Value box -- looks just like the Peltier version except the company name is given as Berry Pink Industries. And the lowest number showing on the 1979 catalog sheets is 6106 H. (H for the incredible Hulk header) So, 5075 is a reasonable catalog number for earlier in the 70's. But if a 1970's "Berry Pink Marble" is listed in AMMM, I missed it. I can't even see that they noted Mr. Pink's passing. He died in 1962. The 1958 St. Mary's fire is discussed on p. 94 and then on p. 95 it says: Also, 75 doesn't seem to appear as one of the marble counts found in Marble King packaging. Maybe it's not Marble King? But who else would be selling marbles with that name in 1973?

I knew better than that. Here's a bit more, from an Oswego, NY paper. Some nice details about Berry Pink and the tournament in general. The final prize appears to have been $250. Click the links below the headlines for more of the articles. Might need to double click for full size. The 2nd one ends early, but I think most of it is there. . . . . .. http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o151/modularforms/History/1940_April_11_Oswego_NY.jpg http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o151/modularforms/History/1940_June_14_Oswego_NY.jpg Papers archived here: http://fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html

Cool bag ... not exactly what it seems to be, but still cool: Jeff Hale's explanation: Source: Marble Collector's Club

The New York Times gives a figure of "more than 150" instead of 300 for the number of competitors at the national tournament in New York in 1940. But maybe some were unable to make the trip? One other discrepancy is that whoever gave the June 24-20 dates in the Tacoma Times description seems to have confused this tourney with the Scripps Howard tourney in New Jersey. The Berry Pink tourney was a week earlier, at the World's Fair. The winner Douglas Opperman of Pittsburgh received maybe $200 or $300 (accounts vary). This allowed the family to purchase their first car. He donated his crown to the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum at the Heinz History Center. Which doesn't tell Don when his trophy was awarded or how many there were. I thnk I'm done anyway. LOL (From NYT -- click to enlarge) Click here for bigger image: http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o151/modularforms/History/MarbleKing_June1940_40percent.jpg