For those that have some interest in early pool and billiards history, the site linked below has an online digitized copy of the 1893 "The New York Clipper Annual" which contains information on dozens and dozens of pool and billiard challenge matches, gambling matches, and tournaments along with a few other pool and billiard related historical side notes for the years 1820-1892. The information is on pages 48-51 (there are a couple of non-numbered pages right after page 48 that you have to click past before you can continue on to page 49).
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/dig...5288_005/pages/ldpd_5655288_005_00000060.html
Interestingly, it indicates that this year is the 200th anniversary of the pool cue in America by stating that in the year 1820 "billiard cues, superseding maces, came into use in America".
Also interesting is that they were playing for some pretty large sums of money for the time, with the largest I saw while glancing through being a match played for $10,000 in 1858, but with $1,000 seeming to be the most common figure played for during the years covered. I can't vouch for its accuracy but the site below lists $10,000 in 1858 as being equivalent to about $316,000 today after adjusting for inflation, and $1,000 that same year being equivalent to about $31,600 today to give a general feel for the sums of money that were involved.
https://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation/1800?amount=1
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/dig...5288_005/pages/ldpd_5655288_005_00000060.html
Interestingly, it indicates that this year is the 200th anniversary of the pool cue in America by stating that in the year 1820 "billiard cues, superseding maces, came into use in America".
Also interesting is that they were playing for some pretty large sums of money for the time, with the largest I saw while glancing through being a match played for $10,000 in 1858, but with $1,000 seeming to be the most common figure played for during the years covered. I can't vouch for its accuracy but the site below lists $10,000 in 1858 as being equivalent to about $316,000 today after adjusting for inflation, and $1,000 that same year being equivalent to about $31,600 today to give a general feel for the sums of money that were involved.
https://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation/1800?amount=1