Pressman Hop Ching Chinese Checkers Game Board clearie marbles

This is a hard to find variant of the Pressman Toy Corporation Hop Ching Chinese Checkers game board with 36 clearie marbles, and the original information insert. The box has a colorful cover of cartoon Chinese people. The game board is made of card stock with six metal trays. The game is incomplete as there are only six marbles of each color, when there should be ten of each. While opaque marbles are generally the standard for Chinese checkers, they did sell sets with clearie marbles, and these examples, while incomplete, appear correct. While some articles report Pressman made their own marbles, Pressman mostly used marbles made by the Alley Agate Company. The marbles are very bubbly, and a few have a small swirl-like crimp mark at one end, consistent with Alley Agate Company transparent marbles of this era. Most of the marbles are in very good condition, but one has a spider-like chip (shown in photo). The metal trays have some crazing, and some seams of the board have some separations. The cover of the box is missing the letter C in checkers from a tag that was peeled off, one corner is ripped, and the top slightly pressed in.

J. Pressman & Co was established in 1922, introduced Hop Ching in 1928, and in 1947, the company reincorporated as the Pressman Toy Corporation. Based on the company name on the box, and the printer's number on the edge of the game, this rare game board variant may date to 1956. It has a J.J. Newberry five and dime store price sticker of 99 cents, and was a less expensive copy of the game than the metal container sets out during this time.

Chinese checkers traces its origin to an 1850's four cornered English Board Game called Hoppity, and a similar 1884 four-cornered American Board game called Halma. In 1892, the game was adopted in Germany where the game board was transformed into a six pointed star, allowing six players to compete. In 1928, The Pressman Company of New York released the board game in the US under the name Hop Ching Checkers. Numerous companies copied the game. The earliest Pressman boards were simply labeled "Hop Ching," then later "Hop Ching Checkers", and then finally "Hop Ching Chinese Checkers."