Ever wanted one of those rare antique life pool ( Snookers Pool ) scoreboard .
Well feast you’re eyes on this beauty , a pre 1890 Thurston made in solid oak with real Ivory dot markers on the slide out panels .
If you do not know the rules fear not I have a oak framed set of Snooker Pool to go with this board .
If you look to the bottom of the board you will see that there is also a Ball storage at each end , and in the middle you have penny slots with ivory markings for each player .
The aim was to play for a penny and you could also add a penny for the extra life .
These boards with the penny slot ball storage are very hard to find complete , this board is also the rare oak version , you can find some 8 and 10 player boards , but this one is for twelve players so a top of the range board when it was made in 1889 , you may ask why we know the date , it was the date the house was built and the table was ordered new from thurstons the same year .
there is a little renovation work to do , small piece of oak to replace lower marker slide on left side , and the marker itself is missing , also three ivory round dot markers missing but I do have some of these , I also have one ivory ball that you can make two new markers from , by having the ball turned to the shape of the marker then cut in half , an ivory ball on it’s own is worth £50 to bagpipe re-furbishers for the ivory rings around the pipe’s.
there is also a strip of glass that needs replacing that is a window above the penny slots and new keys for the locks will have to be made . To get better windows and frames one can opt for the UPVC Windows Australia.
The ball storage compartments at the bottom behind glazed doors hold 32 balls in a section so 16 per side. scroll down the photo’s to see one ivory ball in the left hand compartment as an example.
so enough for a complete snooker set of 22 and 10 extra balls .
12 penny slots for old Victorian penny’s. with small ivory dot markers.
roller numbers in black background in real gold leaf , 0 to 20 / 20 to 40 / 40 to 60 / 60 to 80 / 80 to 100 .
On each slide out life panel you also have the black background with gold leaf description
behind the slide out panel you will see three boxwood inlaid life’s , and one pull out star that slides out from the centre , this star is the extra life that you can buy for an extra penny .
CLICK ON THE PHOTO TWICE FOR A CLOSER INSPECTION .
So offers please around £1500 , I am in no rush to move this on , it is one for a rainy day so to speak , so I am not desperate to sell it .
Look closely at the stamp and you will see 1886 where Printers & Tothill cross the stamp. we know the house was completed with billiard room in 1889 . Click on the photo for a close up of the 1886 date .
You may ask where the Billiard table has gone , We had someone in mind for it , but they could not afford the moving and install costs , we are afraid the table was put to other use’s the cushions where re-used on a smaller table the slate is ready to be used for other purpose , the legs have gone to a furniture restorer along with the other frame parts , but here is a photo of the old Thurston table that this Snookers pool board came form . Note the old top plate pocket plates , these where discontinued by Thurston in favour of the concealed lug pocket plate fixing in 1895 . in fact all billiard tables changed over to the concealed pocket plate by the late 1890’s , a move started by the Maker George Wright who where the first to design a concealed pocket plate , all the other firms soon followed them and made there own hidden lug fixing pocket plate .
The ivory Thurston manufacture’s plate on end cushion , thurston established in 1814 making billiard tables , before this John thurston worked for Gillows the furniture maker , who also made billiard tables , these Gillows tables can be worth upto £50.000 , most go for around the £25.000 to £30.000 price , they are nothing to look at , but there are Gillows furniture enthusiasts all around the world who would love to own one of their billiard tables as it is reported they only made an hand full each year , they became Waring and Gillows in later years and stopped produceing the Gillows Billiard tables , but Gillows tables are credited to be the first true full size table with pockets and all tables made today evolved from a gillows table .
A gillows table , note the very thin slate dated to around 1830 I have worked on this table and it is for sale , just look in our for sale section and scroll down .
this gillows table in original format would have had a three section wood bed , it has been replaced or produced by gillows around 1830 with welsh three section slate , John thurston is known to be the first person to use slate in place of wood on a billiard table’s around 1830 , we think it may have been Thurstons who converted the wood bed to this three section bed in his early days as a billiard manufacturer. Thurstons are still in business today based in Liverpool . as slate got thicker the bed went from three sections to four , then to five as used today
