Most marble collectors collect marbles. Not the ordinary immies and aggies kids used to play and shoot with on the street but such rarities as early clay and porcelain specimens, others made of carnelian, onyx, tiger's-eye and other stones, distinctive handmade glass examples or amusing comics shooters with the images of characters like Little Orphan Annie, Moon Mullins and Betty Boop.

Yet I'd like to suggest another approach: building a collection of board games that incorporate the use of marbles.

The most familiar of these is Chinese checkers, which was actually a spin on a popular Victorian board game called Halma-the main difference being that Chinese checkers has a six-pointed-star-shaped board, while Halma's board is square.

George Howard Monks, a thoracic surgeon and professor at Harvard Medical School, devised Halma in 1883. The game was inspired by his brother Robert's description of a British game called Hoppity.

The name Halma was suggested by a fellow teacher, Dr. Thomas Hill, it being the Greek word for "jump." The German company Ravensburger first patented the game as Stern-Halma in 1892.

The first actual Chinese checkers game to appear in the United States was published under the name Hop Ching Checkers by J. Pressman & Co in 1928; the name was soon changed to its permanent form by the Pressman brothers shortly after. It became a craze that swept the nation in the 1930s, with several companies producing their own versions — with names like Ching-Ka-Chek, Mah Tong, and Man-Dar-In, all of which are collectible, and the more elaborate the design, replete with snarling dragons and other Asian motifs, the better.

There were also several popular games featuring marbles that were aimed at solo players — in fact during the Civil War, soldiers carried around marbles and a small board to play a simple game whose object was to keep jumping the marbles until only one was left in the center of the board. One collectible solitaire game consisted of a square cherry wood board made at Berea College and distributed by Abercrombie and Fitch, with the Solitaire logo burned into the wood. Another solitaire game is General Grant Solitaire Game Board, a circular board with a cross pattern for marbles which, it is believed, were fine, handmade glass swirls. (The likelihood of finding an authentic antique board with the original marbles is slim, and modern reproductions have been spotted — a genuine set could bring $500 or more.)

Marbles were logical ingredients for pinball games, and the Marx Toys firm introduced one called The Big Game — Bagatelle, which was played with nine white marbles and one black marble. Its colorful face depicts a wild bear, moose, deer and a ferocious tiger.

There were several games played with marbles introduced in the late 1960s and '70s. Wrestle Around by Ideal involved gripping a "wrestling handle" to manipulate marbles; Stay Alive from Hasbro was a board game with horizontal and vertical slides; Ideal's slightly strange Marblehead had the players competing to accumulate the most marbles by sticking their fingers through the holes in a head; and, aimed at the youngest set, was Warner Bros.' Daffy Duck's Lollipop Hop Game, featuring Daffy, Sylvester, and Porky Pig. Then there's Aggravation, a Parcheesi-like game whose name comes from the action of capturing an opponent's piece by landing on its space known as "aggravating"; and finally, there's The Pac-Man Game, with a board mimicking the iconic arcade game, with the marbles representing "power pellets" and "energizer power."

RECENT REFERENCE: "Everett Grist's Big Book of Marbles" (Collector Books, $24.95) is a comprehensive identification and price guide to marbles. It offers information on manufacturers, the various types of marbles from onionskins to peppermints, marble clubs and shows, and with a useful glossary of terms.

Linda Rosenkrantz has edited Auction magazine and authored 18 books, including "Cool Names for Babies" and "The Baby Name Bible" (St. Martin's Press; www.babynamebible.com). She cannot answer letters personally.To find out more about Linda Rosenkrantz and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.