Hustling in Gold Country

[Bob Jewett]

I just got a scan of an old book by a Mr. McCleery. It is mostly about carom billiards. Here is a story from the intro part.


Unless I missed a decimal point somewhere, 30 pounds of gold is worth something like $600,000 now. Not bad for a 10-hour hustle.

The whole book is available as the last item at:

http://www.sfbilliards.com/miscellaneous.htm

 

[pt109]

I guess “taking a poke at it” had a different meaning to a pool player back then.

 

[ctyhntr]

What is pin pool? Is that the precursor to bumper pool?

 

[Bob Jewett]

What is pin pool? Is that the precursor to bumper pool?

No, not bumper pool.

An essential reference for pool historians is the "New Illustrated Encyclopedia of Billiards" by Mike Shamos which has over 2000 billiard-related terms, many with diagrams or pictures.

Pin Pool (game) A generic variety of game played with two white balls, one red ball, and five wooden PINS or SKITTLES, resembling minature bowling pins, to be used as targets...​

Shamos gives references going back to 1830 for pin pool.

Pin billiards is still played in Italy, Argentina and Denmark according to the last reports I heard. The form that I saw required you to drive the red ball through the pins to score. Each player gets one shot per inning.

 

[Cuebuddy]

Cool story Bob, thanks.
Its threads like this that remind me of Mr. Bond and how much I miss his contributions to the forum.