Ralph Greenleaf brand chalk, finally dated..

[hunger strike]

Ralph Greenleaf chalk, the stuff that says the odd word "chakt" on it, and Ralph's repro signature on it, is so rare that when my friend Ed Palmer turned it up he was afraid that other collectors would believe he whipped it up himself. It is square blue chalk, with a blue and white label. Well, I just purchased a box of 12 chalks and 8 of them were autographed by famous players. One of them was a piece of this Greenleaf. On the 4 sides, it says Ralph, Greenleaf, Ralph, Greenleaf. Under these words Greenleaf himself personally autographed each word, so it says Ralph Greenleaf twice on the cube and on one side he dated it 1948. Another piece is a National Tournament that has Greenleaf's autograph and that piece appears to have been autographed at the same time and with the same pen as the other 6 autographs. The other 6 are signed on pieces of Clik chalk from Brunswick. The Irving Crane piece is dated 1937 by Crane above his autograph. Others include Mosconi, Seaback, Diehl, Procita, and Rudolph. And the autographs compare perfectly with autographs known to be originals that I own. They also correspond to the 1937 championship players. Too bad he didn't get them all but that's ok. Pretty cool.

 

[Mr. Bond]

sounds like an awesome set

let me know if you'd be willing to share pics of your collection with The Museum

 

[hunger strike]

I will try to get some photos on here of all these

I am pretty busy right now, maybe I can get some photos on here next week. I have a museum myself, it's my house.:smile:

 

[Mr. Bond]

since you said that, i'm gonna take this opportunity to post a public service announcement on this subject:

The Chicago Billiard Museum is ALWAYS looking for more information and artifacts, no matter how significant or insignificant it may seem. Its not about the objects themselves, its about the information they can give us and what that information can contribute to our overall understanding.

Why do we chose to build an online archive versus a physical one?

#1. Access.

#2. Access.

#3. Access.

In the past, digging into billiard history required innumerable phone calls, expensive camera equipment, road trips, lots of leg work and some luck.

The electronic age has made things much easier with the internet, email, digital cameras, digital paper archives and books etc...

But - unfortunately for everyone, the bulk of the information still lies within the hands of private collectors, historians and individuals.

Not the Smithsonian nor the National Archives, or even the Chicago History Museum has a collection of billiard history worth noting. They are empty of billiard history, and so is the internet.

So - a special message to the collectors, historians and classic billiard fans out there:

Please share your information and artifacts with us for the sake of preservation and promotion of our games. For the good of the group, and for the general public as well. We all have something positive to gain.

We will certainly give you full credit for anything that you contribute, which for many people can be useful publicity, but our most important goal is to preserve the integrity of the artifacts themselves. Which is yet another reason why we prefer an online archive, because sharing images of rare items and artifacts does not somehow decrease their rarity, or lessen their monetary value, I say it is in fact quite the opposite.

If you think about it, an example migh be the show Pawn Stars, where people bring rare/interesting/historic things in to sell.

By watching the show, millions of people have "seen" these rare items, and learned all about them. But are these items any less valuable or rare because of it? Of course not.

My contact information is here and on The Museum website. Feel free to open a conversation anytime.

 

[book collector]

Congratulations , thats a great find.
Are you looking for any books for your collection ?

 

[hunger strike]

I don't make much effort with books....

The other book collectors are so advanced that I think it is better to let them build their collections into complete libraries, without me competing with them. I like books though, if I can get a bargain. Especially if they were written by a champion player.

 

[hunger strike]

Excellent points, and good work you're doing....

since you said that, i'm gonna take this opportunity to post a public service announcement on this subject:

The Chicago Billiard Museum is ALWAYS looking for more information and artifacts, no matter how significant or insignificant it may seem. Its not about the objects themselves, its about the information they can give us and what that information can contribute to our overall understanding.

Why do we chose to build an online archive versus a physical one?

#1. Access.

#2. Access.

#3. Access.

In the past, digging into billiard history required innumerable phone calls, expensive camera equipment, road trips, lots of leg work and some luck.

The electronic age has made things much easier with the internet, email, digital cameras, digital paper archives and books etc...

But - unfortunately for everyone, the bulk of the information still lies within the hands of private collectors, historians and individuals.

Not the Smithsonian nor the National Archives, or even the Chicago History Museum has a collection of billiard history worth noting. They are empty of billiard history, and so is the internet.

So - a special message to the collectors, historians and classic billiard fans out there:

Please share your information and artifacts with us for the sake of preservation and promotion of our games. For the good of the group, and for the general public as well. We all have something positive to gain.

We will certainly give you full credit for anything that you contribute, which for many people can be useful publicity, but our most important goal is to preserve the integrity of the artifacts themselves. Which is yet another reason why we prefer an online archive, because sharing images of rare items and artifacts does not somehow decrease their rarity, or lessen their monetary value, I say it is in fact quite the opposite.

If you think about it, an example migh be the show Pawn Stars, where people bring rare/interesting/historic things in to sell.

By watching the show, millions of people have "seen" these rare items, and learned all about them. But are these items any less valuable or rare because of it? Of course not.

My contact information is here and on The Museum website. Feel free to open a conversation anytime.

My collection will be online at some point, after everything is displayable. Right now it's a warehouse.

 

[hunger strike]

Photos

Here are photos of the chalks. The autographs on the red chalks are: Ralph Greenleaf top left, Irving Crane, Joe Procita, Erwin Rudolph 1937 dated, and the bottom row is Charles Seaback, Joe Diehl, and the great Willie Mosconi. In the second photo you can see where Greenleaf autographed each printed word, beneath each. The Triangle chalk came with these but had no autograph; it is labelled from a billiard company in Bethlehem, PA.