19th Century Travelling Marble Solitaire Game with 33 Handmade Clay Marbles

This two-piece board has a fairly small diameter and is unusual in that it has a circular open wood base storage section, which is screwed to the underside of the top, allowing it to pivot and serve as a container or store for the marbles. These features make this game very useful to take on your travels.

The circular turned top board is made of hardwood, possibly walnut. The board has 32 equi-spaced holes with an additional one in the centre and a gallery to the outer perimeter. The lower container part is also hand-turned and made of a soft-wood, probably pine.

It comes complete with a full set of 33 (32 plus one spare) early handmade playing marbles.
Early marbles are very collectable in their own right and the marbles in this set are nominally 9/16 inches in diameter. They are made from clay or earthenware with some stone and are a mixture of colors.

Popular in the court of Louis the XIV, the game was supposedly invented by a nobleman incarcerated in the Bastille in France during the 17th century and was popular in the court of Louis XIV. It is a challenging game for the fan of strategy and skill and became one of the more popular games of the last few 100 years.

To play, place 32 marbles with one hole left unoccupied in the middle of the board. The objective is simply to remove all but one of the marbles by jumping one marble over another, similar to the game of Draughts. The marble jumped is removed to the gallery around the side of the board.

The small size of this board (about 6.7 inches diameter) makes it perfect to take on your travels and can be played by young and old alike.