The "Kings" of West Virginia: The Marble King

In the 1930's and '40's, traveling salesman Barry Pink had been criss-crossing the eastern part of the United Sates.  One of his lines was a then-very-popular children's toy - marbles - manufactured by the Peltier Glass Company of Ottawa, Illinois and marketed under the name "Marble King."  In the course of his travels, Pink not only gave away free samples of the product, but he hosted marbles tournaments throughout the mid-Atlantic region.  Barry had been selling marbles for quite some time, and was quite good at it...so good that he had become known as the marble king.  So good, in fact, that he sold more marbles than Peltier could produce.  And so, in 1949, Barry Pink joined forces with Sellers Peltier (the son of the owner of Peltier Glass Co.) to form a new company.  Pink retained majority interest in the new venture, and Marble King, Incorporated was born.  Barry Pink was now, indeed, "The Marble King."

Marble King marbles, STILL proudly made in the USA

Fast-forward sixty-six years.  Today, Marble King is still making marbles.  Its original location in St. Mary's, West Virginia, was destroyed by fire in 1958, and Roger Howdyshell, who managed the facility, moved it to Paden City, West Virginia, where it is still located.  There are other marble-makers in the United States - Jabo, Inc. in Parkersburg, WV is one - and a number of specialty companies that sell a lot of imported marbles (Moon Marble Company in Bonner Springs, KS, for example) but Marble King is the undisputed leader, currently producing over one million marbles per day and shipping them world-wide.  The factory operates seven days a week, twenty-four hours per day, halting production only on holidays or for scheduled (and sometimes unscheduled) maintenance.

The Marble King factory in Paden City, WV is not a very imposing place,
considering that they are a company whose products are shipped world-wide
from right here at their "world headquarters" in Paden City, WV

Except for that John Deere Lawn Tractor, the interior looks pretty much like it did
when it opened here in 1958, after a fire destroyed the original location in St. Mary's, WV

In the mid-1950's, the Japanese threatened to dominate the market with the introduction of a new marble called the Cat's Eye, with an opaque center inside a clear, tinted glass marble.  Pink and Howdyshell traveled to Japan to try to learn or buy the process.  Failing in their endeavor, they returned home and Howdyshell, who had been an engineering major prior to serving in WWII (he attended college on the G.I. bill following the war and got his degree in business) came up with his own process for making Cat's Eyes.

Barry Pink passed away in 1962 and Roger Howdyshell continued as co-owner of the business.  He became the sole owner in 1968 and ran the company until his death in 1991.  Marble King is still owned by the Howdyshell family.  Roger's daughter, Beri Fox, is now at the helm of the company of 38 employees, and her daughter, Jeanne, who has worked for Marble King since she was sixteen years old, plans to someday carry on the family business.

Marble King President and CEO Beri Fox with Stephen Colbert

and with Martha Stewart.  The tower in front of them makes
different tones as the marbles drop down from one level to the next

Walking up to the plant, one gets the impression of a recycling center - which, of course, is exactly what it is.  Piles and bins of clear and colored broken glass sit just outside the factory.  Marble King buys glass from recyclers.  It also gets broken glass from other glass manufacturing operations.  Some of the marbles that you played with as a kid may well have been made from glass produced by such notable names as Fostoria or the Fenton Art Glass Company.

Glass dumped in the yard at Marble King looks like snow that has been plowed into piles

Barrels of broken glass sit outside, waiting to be used

Green glass.....

Blue glass...

Clear glass....

White glass....

Marble King melts 4.5 tons of broken glass each day to make one million marbles

Seventy-five pounds of broken glass are fed into the 2,350-degree gas-fired furnaces every twenty minutes - 4.5 tons of broken glass each day - producing a steady stream of molten glass that is cut into small pieces and dropped onto a series of rollers that form the glass into perfectly round little orbs as it cools.  After cooling for twenty-four hours the marbles are all sorted by hand.  Imperfect pieces are discarded, to be melted down and re-used in another batch.  Marbles are sized and packaged for shipping.

Pushing the glass into a 2,350 degree oven has to be hot work

The molten glass from the furnaces drops onto these rollers, which
keep rolling and turning it as it cools, forming perfectly round little spheres

After cooling for 24 hours, the marbles are inspected by  hand, and sorted by size

And just what does one do with a million marbles per day?  The majority of the marbles are used for industrial purposes.  You know that "rattle" that you hear when you shake a can of spray paint?  Most people think that is a ball bearing.  Wrong!  It is a marble, and chances are, it is a Marble King marble.  The petroleum industry uses marbles to un-clog and scrub out pipelines.  Marbles are also used in jewelry, in decorative landscape and accent pieces, in fish tanks, and more.  As far as toys are concerned, marbles are found in board games (Chinese Checkers) and other games (remember Hungry, Hungry Hippos?)  

The Marble King gift shop features authentic American toys

including this rug, on which you can play a variation
of marbles much like shuffleboard

The tower that was in the picture with Martha Stewart
is also for sale in the gift shop. It is not made by
Marble King but by another local West Virginia craftsman

Marbles sold by the pound...pick out your favorite colors

And, of course, the requisite T-shirts are available

But the original purpose - the ancient game of marbles known as "Ringer" - is still around.  Each year since 1968, Marble King has been a contributing sponsor and supporter of The National Marble Tournament.  And the winners of the tournament each year, one boy and one girl, under the age of 14, are crowned "Marble King" and "Marble Queen" and are each awarded a $2,000 college scholarship, compliments of Marble King.  Talk about "taking home all the marbles..."   

Youngsters from all over the U.S. enter local and regional competitions to
qualify for the National Marbles Tournament, held each spring.

In addition to sponsoring the National Marbles Tournament,
Marble Kings presents programs and demonstrations at
schools, for scout troops, and other community groups

There is even a "official" marble sizing tool, calibrated and certified
by NASA's National Institute of Science and Technology. Marble
King marbles have flown in space on a NASA mission.

 Oh, yeah, one other significant event occurred in 1949.  Mrs. Byrne's little boy, Mike, was born.

An American icon.....since 1949

Mike and Marble King, both still going strong at sixty-six...now, that's gotta' be good for some Road Stories.

http://www.marblekingusa.com/Home_Page.php

The "Kings" of West Virginia: The Toy King

Recently, following a conversation with our five year old granddaughter, I set out to find her several mainstays of childhood play.  Neither could be found at Target, Walmart, Dollar General or the half-dozen other stores I visited.  And what are these elusive treasures from days gone by that were the objects of my quest?  Marbles and Jacks.  Undoubtedly, corporate lawyers have explained to stores that these choking hazards should be keep off of shelves.  Perhaps that reasoning, along with the predominance of electronic gadgets, and lower manufacturing costs overseas explains why there is only one remaining U.S. manufacture of marbles and why the last manufacturing plant owned by the "Toy King" (a moniker given by Time magazine) closed its doors for good in 1980. 

Marx bought the die for the Climbing Monkey used from another toy maker.
Marx produced and sold millions of copies of the toy, even though the
original manufacturer thought the toy had outlived its sales potential

Brothers Louis and David Marx were risk-taking entrepreneurs who were marketing geniuses. The Marx Toy Company was founded in 1919.  Early in the company's history the brothers copied (but slightly tweaked so as not to infringe on patents) existing toys, but improved on and produced their versions of the toys less expensively than the competition.  By 1922 the brothers were millionaires.  One of the early successes for the Marx Toy Company came in 1928, when it introduced the yo-yo.  In the 1930's, in the midst of the Great Depression, the brothers opened  factories in Erie and Girard, Pennsylvania, along with a third - their largest - in Glen Dale, West Virginia.  Early trucks and other toys were plated steel which were lithographed.

The early Marx toys were colorful and sturdy and let the
child use his imagination

Firemen and a race car tin wind-up toys from the late 1930's or early 1940's

Marx Melody Makers from the 1930's were produced in four variations: With and
without the backdrop, and with the mouse on top holding either a violin (as
 shown) or a baton.  This version is very rare and is extremely sought-after

During the war years of the 1940's, Marx factories were converted to make munitions and weapons for the war effort.  Following the war, the factories resumed toy production, but metal was still in short supply, so in 1947 Marx developed a "plastics department" in the Glen Dale plant.  This led to a new line referred to as "play sets" in the 1950's and 1960's.  One of the lines was "conflicting" sets:  cowboys versus Indians; police versus mobsters; and later, secret agents versus foreign spies.  There were also "scenario" sets:  farms; medieval castles; frontier forts, western towns and many others.  These play sets contained as many as 100 extremely detailed pieces that were durable and affordable.  Early sets in the late 1940's and 1950's sold between $4.00 and $7.00.  Larger sets in the 1960's sold for $10.00 to $12.00.  (In comparison, a Fort Apache Stockade play set in the original box recently sold on eBay for $203.49.)  By the 1950's Marx Toys was the largest toy manufacturer in the world and produced one-third of all toys found in American homes.

Wind-up "Honeymoon Express."  Using the same dies and changing only the graphics,
this toy was later built as the Mickey Mouse Express and the Subway Express

The Alamo play set.  Basically, the same design as Fort Apache.  Note the number of
supporting pieces and the detail molded into each piece.  Change their colors and those
Mexican soldiers could be Civil War soldiers

King Arthur's Castle and the Knights of the Round Table

As times changed the toys evolved to mirror society.  Marx produced doll houses from the 1920's to the 1970's, but in 1962, immediately following the Cuban Missile Crisis, one doll house featured a bomb/fallout shelter.  Later in the decade, with the nation fixated on the space race, "moon landing" sets were created.  While all of us have fond memories of some favorite toy, probably the two most-remembered Marx toys were the Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots (1964) and the ubiquitous Big Wheel (1969).  Marx mass-produced affordable toys that encouraged children's imagination.

The lunar landing in 1969 prompted the creation of this "Moon Landing: play set

Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots debuted in 1964, and remained popular for nearly two decades

The original Big Wheel.  Every 5-year-old wanted one.  Suddenly, you could
"cruise" on your bike, right along with the older kids

Part of the company's ability to keep prices low was the fact that they would re-purpose dies using the same model for different sets.  With just a slight change in graphics, a circus big top could become the tent under which the Knights of the Round Table jousted for their ladies' affection.  Another factor for their dominance in the toy industry was their marketing techniques. Their products were readily available in Sears, Roebuck & Co.and Montgomery Ward catalogs as well as in F.W. Woolworth stores.   They also had a "high profile" relationship with Walt Disney and produced toys featuring the Disney characters.  Many of their play sets were based on popular comic book and radio (and later, television) characters.  Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, The Lone Ranger, the Rifleman - name a western action star and chances are, Marx made a play set featuring him.

Car City Parking Garage from the 1960's.  Note the Volkswagen.  Accessories like
this helped to determine a toys approximate age.

The Midtown Service Station was one of Marx's toys that combined plastics with stamped metal

"Marx-A-Mansion", one of the largest doll houses the company produced, from the early 1960's

Characters from radio (Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd), comics
and Disney (one of Snow White's Dwarfs) all found their way into Marx toys

Roy Rogers play set. Note that with only slight changes in the lithograph, this
"town" could become the home of Hoppy, the Lone Ranger, or any other cowboy hero.

Ironically, the company's decline related to some of the very same factors that led to their sustainability in the market place.   In 1972 , Louis Marx, then 76 years old, sold the Louis Marx Toy Company to Quaker Oats.  (Quaker also owned Fisher-Price Toys.)  Following Mr. Marx's departure, the company went into decline, possibly due to factors including ignoring the trend toward electric and electronic toys, lack of advertising budget (specifically the TV market), and high cost of U.S. production.  After 52 years of constant profits under Louis Marx's stewardship, the company suffered huge losses and in a mere three years, Quaker sold the company, in 1975, to Richard Beecham, the British Marx manager.  Beecham tried to turn the company around but it was too late. The Pennsylvania factories closed in 1976 and the West Virginia plant was shuttered in 1980.

Thanks to toy collector Francis Turner, many Marx creations as well as company history can be experienced at the official Marx Toy Museum, opened in 1982 in Moundsville, WV, only a mile from the original factory.  There are interesting displays of original artwork and rare prototypes. The visitor can view early TV commercials and footage from the Glen Dale factory.  There is a timeline with representative toys from each decade. Most significantly, there are more than 100 full play sets in dioramic displays.  An hour or two at the museum will have the visitor hunting for that fondly-remembered toy that can't be found at any mall.

This prototype of the circus diorama featured a real canvas tent and all hand-painted
figures, including all the people in the seats.  It was deemed to be too costly to mass-produce

This is the circus diorama that Marx actually produced...stamped tin, lithographed

How many kids over the years unwrapped shiny new Marx cars and trucks on Christmas morning, and created their own Road Stories?

Trucks...the stuff that dreams...and Road Stories...are made of

Coming in the next edition of Road Stories: The other "King" of West Virginia.