Sold Old Balls
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Those are Brunswick Ivorylene "Dart" brand clay balls. They look to be in playable condition. You might get $200 or more from a collector. The original box would be a huge plus. A full set of Dart balls is being offered on Ebay at $100. They are in worse condition with chips and cracks and are probably not playable.
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I have had several sets over the years from tag sailing in old areas of Ct. - sold them all - but I never found a set without the cracks in the balls - if yours are clean - they are much more desired IMO / I think $200 would be a good value as well. I know that I sold mine over 10 years ago for much less.
This set and another recently posted prompted me to look in my old Brunswick catalogs. What I discovered...
The Brunswick dart design first appeared between 1930 and 1941. It was branded as "Ivorylene" and not as "Dart". Brunswick was careful to say "look for the dart for quality" to distinguish their design, which I believe was made by Hyatt -- from other clay balls. (Edit... The dart seems to have originated in 1933 -- see the catalog/newsletter below.)
In 1930 the Ivorylene brand existed but it had no dart and the number was in the stripe -- white eye with simple black circle.
In the 1951 catalog, a set of Ivorylene (dart style) balls was listed at $30. The design was also used for poker and baseball pool sets and snooker sets. American snooker balls were numbered. At the same time cast phenolic balls were listed at $64. They were called "Centennial" but they did not have the current Centennial design and were just plain numbers in stripes. A year later the price has been reduced to $60.
Ivorylenes were in the 1961 catalog and the cast phenolic Centennials had settled on the current design:
Ivorylenes (dart-style clay balls) were dropped from the Brunswick catalog in 1962.
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Much better than my paper collection of Brunswick catalogs is this online collection. It can be also reached through the Brunswick website.
From the 1936 catalog there:
From the 1936 catalog there:
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They will sit for the rest of your life at 200 unfortunately
Does this mean you are back playing again?
I'll take that as a maybe. Have the halls converted to non-smoking by now?
That happened a long time ago! I think it was probably in effect back when I was regularly posting on here. But yes, I am back playing but not to the extent I used to. Life has sort of gotten in the way and priorities have had to make a major shift in the direction of my family but I dust off my cue every once in a while
They look to be in good shape. Do you have the box and the cue ball? If so, condition?
If you do not have the cue ball and the box, that really affects the value to a collector. $200 may be a stretch with $100 being more in line with what you've got. I think I paid $125 for my set above.
That's my opinion based on personal experience, I have never gotten more than $150 for primo sets of these, in the original box. A million sets of clay balls exist and no one seems to care about them anymore. I put them on display for fun, they are charming.
Ivory balls would be $150+ per ball
Which reminds me of a very old story from a very good road player from the 1940s. He would go into rooms and loudly proclaim, "No one here can beat me. I beat Ralph Greenfield!" Of course, anyone who didn't even know the name of the Champion probably didn't know pool, so people got in line to play him. After he won he would say, "Well, I told you I beat Greenfield. You didn't believe me."
Upon reflection, since spittoons were made of brass, it’s more likely that ball must have hit the cast iron legs of the wooden theater seats against the wall, that the spittoon was next to. I DID once have to fish a ball I hit off the table out of that same spittoon though.