World's most expensive marbles - used by Derbyshire mastermind to plan Dambusters raid - sold for £15k

Watch more of our videos on ShotsTV.com 
and on Freeview 262 or Freely 565
Visit Shots! now
The world's most expensive marbles - used by the Derbyshire mastermind who planned the Dambusters raid - have sold for £15,000.

Ripley’s bouncing-bomb creator Barnes Wallis used the two glass balls in his back garden to calculate trajectory. Officially labelled ‘Operation Chastise' the Dambusters raid was a mission to destroy three dams in the Ruhr valley in Germany. The raid is said to be one of the most daring in the war and immortalised in the 1955 film ‘The Dam Busters’.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The task was undertaken by specially trained members of the RAF’s 617 Squadron on the night of 16th / 17th May 1943, and used a new weapon – ‘Upkeep’ – the famous ‘bouncing-bomb.'

The new invention could skim across water and avoid torpedo nets and training for the raids took place on the Derwent reservoirs in Derbyshire’s Peak District

Original marbles that bouncing-bomb creator Barnes Wallis used in his back garden to calculate trajectory.Original marbles that bouncing-bomb creator Barnes Wallis used in his back garden to calculate trajectory.
Original marbles that bouncing-bomb creator Barnes Wallis used in his back garden to calculate trajectory.

Some of his earliest experiments to create the weapon were undertaken in an old tin bath in his back garden using a catapult and his daughter’s marbles. The two marbles this week sold for £15,200 at Auctioneum Ltd in Bristol.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Auctioneer Andrew Stowe said: “These two marbles changed not only the course of the war but the entire world as we know it. They may be small, but their importance is gigantic.

“These marbles were once just children's toys, but they played a pivotal role in the design of the 'bouncing bomb'. 'Without these marbles, the famous Dam Buster raids would not have happened, and the outcome of the war could have been very different.

“They are the most important marbles in the world. Over fifteen thousand pounds for these two marbles is an incredible result. There were over twenty bidders from five different countries, and they attracted close to one-hundred bids.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad
The historic items sold for £15,000The historic items sold for £15,000
The historic items sold for £15,000

In 2020 a letter to Barnes Wallis from his daughter recalling how they practiced it with marbles went on sale. The excited note from 'Wiggy' to her daddy shed more light on how he came up the 'Bouncing Bomb'.

He first proposed the famous weapon in a paper published in 1942 before it was deployed a year later. Wiggy - Mary Wallis, then 16 - penned a congratulatory note to her father just three days after the second night of bombing in 1943.

Comment Guidelines

National World encourages reader discussion on our stories. User feedback, insights and back-and-forth exchanges add a rich layer of context to reporting. Please review our Community Guidelines before commenting.