The Perle bag from Kim'Play holds 21 glass marbles: 20 of 16 mm and one large marble of 25 mm. The octagonal header card shows an opening shell with a pearl inside, and that is exactly what the contents refer to - every marble carries a soft pearly sheen.
Marbles are played on the pavement, in the playground or simply on the carpet. You flick a marble away with your thumb to hit your opponent's or to land it in a small hollow. The large 25 mm marble is the shooter you fire with, and at the same time the piece that gets haggled over hardest.
The twenty small marbles are opaque in colour - red, white, yellow, dark blue, green, grey and black - with a glossy pearly layer over the top. They come in a bag with a hanging card, small enough to travel in a trouser pocket or a schoolbag.
A bag of marbles remains a fine small present: you can play with it straight away and it tops up an existing collection without fuss. For anyone not yet playing, these 21 are enough to start with.
