Ring Men

[Steph]

Alan pointed out this terminology once upon a time and I forgot it. Happened upon it while browsing for our old Akro references.

I'm always curious about what the big marbles were used for.

"ring men"

[Steph]

Found a hit on ring men! Woot woot!

Described as golf ball sized marbles ---

(Also saw reference to a game called "ring-men" but didn't see enough details to post.)

This is from 1966 talking about the Blue Eye game, played a lot 20 years before in Blue Eye, Missouri.

[Al Oregon]

Neat article - thanks for sharing.

[Steph]

Was the giant marble in the middle a rock marble?

How would they have gotten that one out?

I'll continue to keep my eyes out for what the uses of the giant clays might have been. Whether industrial or play.

[Ric]

Ring Men . . . very interesting. From the article description and the name "ring man" it sounds like the ring men might form a circle surrounding the "prize" (winning) marble. I imagine it would be challenging to shoot a 1" ring man out of the playing area with a smaller shooter and I wonder if there was a foul if the "prize" marble was hit while you were trying to remove the ring men. So many questions . . . very interesting, Steph. I second Al's sentiments . . . thanks for posting it!

[bumblebee]

Interesting I had not heard that before. I found an article on Google Books describing a schoolyard game called Center Ball in 1908 which includes ring men:

[Steph]

kewl