A couple questions from BSP...
Continuation of this thread.....
viewtopic.php?f=468&t=6861&p=647897#p647897
Thanks for that book reference, Player. I won't have time to give it a proper viewing; my company business is fantastic and the most important thing for me at the moment. I did give it a quick glance, enough to tell me I want to put this on my "To Do" list. From my quick glance, I will say that I found it a little odd that Mr. Thurston's "translation" includes illustrations of the table showing pockets. Now, as I understand it, Captain Mingaud, the one responsible for the invention of the leather tip, was a Frenchman and as such would have played on a table with no pockets. In the illustrations, you can plainly see the "pockets" represented as black semi-circles in front of the cushions which are all connected to each other as they would be on a pocketless table. So the "translated" version shows pockets, but I am assuming the "untranslated" French version would have been a French pocketless billiard table.
Putting that aside, I will take Mr. Thurston's word that the translation is "by permission" as he seems to state early on. After all, it was his company that manufactured undoubtedly the finest English Billiards table upon which I have ever personally stroked a cue, a model originally manufactured in 1872, prior in fact to the date Snooker was even invented!
However, as a businessman myself, it does appear to me that this work is likely the 1831 version of "going viral"....I think it mainly served the purpose of sales propaganda in order to move more units of Mr. Thurston's primary commodities. Be that as it may, I suspect that when I more thoroughly examine the document, Monsieur Mingaud's information will prove to be reliably accurate.
Moving on to your two questions, I am afraid I am probably not much help here.
i) I have played some English Billiards, but not too much. Are you familiar with English Billiards at all? I did watch a recent match of the World Amateur Championship for English Billiards (it still is a thing and those boys, such as Pankaj Advani, have some serious talent). From what I saw, in the modern set up, one player uses the White while the other player uses the Yellow as his cue ball. I don't know if those are coming from a standard set of Snooker Balls or if a standard set of English Billiard balls are provided this way now (with the Yellow cue ball). I have seen and used a number of the old standard English Billiard ball sets. These consist of three balls... White, Red, and Spot White. And yes, Spot White is exactly identical to White except it has a single, small black spot on it, just about the size of a poppy seed, perhaps. Hard to see unless you know it is there. So I suppose for your question, one of the players would be referred to as White and the other as Spot, to simply differentiate which cue ball each is using. For instance, double scoring strokes are possible.....say Spot is sitting in the jaws of the pocket and White is at table. White can pot Spot with topspin to also pocket his cue ball. This would score four; two for pot of Spot and two for the White in-off. Now with both cue balls in the pocket, White plays from in hand so his ball must be retrieved. He MUST be careful which ball he actually pulls out and plays from in hand because if he plays the wrong cue ball, it is a foul.
ii) I have no absolute information about this at all but your theory makes perfect sense to me. I can even add some information to support your theory in fact. It would seem that the Americans DID in fact pick up on the game when returning home from the Great War. Brunswick Balke Collender was the primary American cue sport equipment manufacturer at that time. Apparently, they made and sold quite a few Snooker tables as well. I am aware of at least three that still exist, including mine which was likely manufactured in 1923 or 1924. I also understand that a lot of the Canadian tables were made by Brunswick Balke Collender as well, though I cannot personally vouch for that. And I have talked to quite a few really old timers, most of them passed by now, in their 80's and 90's if they are still alive, who attested that there was always at least one snooker table in the pool hall when they were young men, but in general, it would be the 3/4 version, 5 x 10. In fact, Brunswick Balke Collender primarily manufactured 5 x 10 for the American Snooker market. The Canadians got the full sized mainly, but to my knowledge, my beautiful, old table is one of just a very few proper, full size, 6 ft. x 12 ft. English Billiards tables manufactured and sold in the USA. Then interest in the game just plunged off a cliff before I arrived on the scene in the middle of the '60's. I had never heard of the game, never saw a table in my life until I arrived in Harrogate. So popularity was never all that great over here but apparently in the early 20th century, there was at least a fair amount of interest. After that, nothing. And I have no idea why.
viewtopic.php?f=468&t=6861&p=647897#p647897
Badsnookerplayer wrote:That's interesting Aces. I had understood that 'pool' comes from the act of pooling money but not the details of the old games that predate snooker. Thanks for shedding some light.
One thing you might be interested in is this translation of Mingaud's book on applying sidespin. I think he was an early adopter of leather tips (as opposed to wood) and one of the first to play with screw and side. The book far predates snooker of course:
https://books.google.co.uk/books/reader ... &q&f=false
Two questions that occurred to me that you may be able to answer.
i) I am sure I have memories of one player being referred to as 'spot' many years ago. Probably old boys playing billiards? Any ideas on that one? Was one cue ball spotted?
ii) The popularity of snooker in Canada and Australia - why? My best guess would be that lots of Aussies and Canadians passed through Britain in the First World War and may have taken back an interest in the game. But if this is the case, why did the many Americans who came through not pick the game up? My theory may be way off.
Cheers!
Thanks for that book reference, Player. I won't have time to give it a proper viewing; my company business is fantastic and the most important thing for me at the moment. I did give it a quick glance, enough to tell me I want to put this on my "To Do" list. From my quick glance, I will say that I found it a little odd that Mr. Thurston's "translation" includes illustrations of the table showing pockets. Now, as I understand it, Captain Mingaud, the one responsible for the invention of the leather tip, was a Frenchman and as such would have played on a table with no pockets. In the illustrations, you can plainly see the "pockets" represented as black semi-circles in front of the cushions which are all connected to each other as they would be on a pocketless table. So the "translated" version shows pockets, but I am assuming the "untranslated" French version would have been a French pocketless billiard table.
Putting that aside, I will take Mr. Thurston's word that the translation is "by permission" as he seems to state early on. After all, it was his company that manufactured undoubtedly the finest English Billiards table upon which I have ever personally stroked a cue, a model originally manufactured in 1872, prior in fact to the date Snooker was even invented!
However, as a businessman myself, it does appear to me that this work is likely the 1831 version of "going viral"....I think it mainly served the purpose of sales propaganda in order to move more units of Mr. Thurston's primary commodities. Be that as it may, I suspect that when I more thoroughly examine the document, Monsieur Mingaud's information will prove to be reliably accurate.
Moving on to your two questions, I am afraid I am probably not much help here.
i) I have played some English Billiards, but not too much. Are you familiar with English Billiards at all? I did watch a recent match of the World Amateur Championship for English Billiards (it still is a thing and those boys, such as Pankaj Advani, have some serious talent). From what I saw, in the modern set up, one player uses the White while the other player uses the Yellow as his cue ball. I don't know if those are coming from a standard set of Snooker Balls or if a standard set of English Billiard balls are provided this way now (with the Yellow cue ball). I have seen and used a number of the old standard English Billiard ball sets. These consist of three balls... White, Red, and Spot White. And yes, Spot White is exactly identical to White except it has a single, small black spot on it, just about the size of a poppy seed, perhaps. Hard to see unless you know it is there. So I suppose for your question, one of the players would be referred to as White and the other as Spot, to simply differentiate which cue ball each is using. For instance, double scoring strokes are possible.....say Spot is sitting in the jaws of the pocket and White is at table. White can pot Spot with topspin to also pocket his cue ball. This would score four; two for pot of Spot and two for the White in-off. Now with both cue balls in the pocket, White plays from in hand so his ball must be retrieved. He MUST be careful which ball he actually pulls out and plays from in hand because if he plays the wrong cue ball, it is a foul.
ii) I have no absolute information about this at all but your theory makes perfect sense to me. I can even add some information to support your theory in fact. It would seem that the Americans DID in fact pick up on the game when returning home from the Great War. Brunswick Balke Collender was the primary American cue sport equipment manufacturer at that time. Apparently, they made and sold quite a few Snooker tables as well. I am aware of at least three that still exist, including mine which was likely manufactured in 1923 or 1924. I also understand that a lot of the Canadian tables were made by Brunswick Balke Collender as well, though I cannot personally vouch for that. And I have talked to quite a few really old timers, most of them passed by now, in their 80's and 90's if they are still alive, who attested that there was always at least one snooker table in the pool hall when they were young men, but in general, it would be the 3/4 version, 5 x 10. In fact, Brunswick Balke Collender primarily manufactured 5 x 10 for the American Snooker market. The Canadians got the full sized mainly, but to my knowledge, my beautiful, old table is one of just a very few proper, full size, 6 ft. x 12 ft. English Billiards tables manufactured and sold in the USA. Then interest in the game just plunged off a cliff before I arrived on the scene in the middle of the '60's. I had never heard of the game, never saw a table in my life until I arrived in Harrogate. So popularity was never all that great over here but apparently in the early 20th century, there was at least a fair amount of interest. After that, nothing. And I have no idea why.
- acesinc
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