Snooker Pre- 1960

[npje]

I think the best insight we have into the standard of play from this period (apart from the stats) is Joe Davis and his first televised 100 break (which can be found on you tube).
Recently, I watched the 1953 Blackpool/Bolton final. What struck me most was the very clear skills gap between that game and the game today. The suprising thhing about the Joe Davis break is that there is not that gap. Although, clearly the games from the 30's had high breaks of 40 so the standard of play could not have been high.
I have no pet theory here. I am just interested in peoples thoughts on the game from the pre-televised era.

[Cyril]

Reproduced from the other thread.

1937 World Final @ Thurstons, London
Joe Davis 32 Horace Lindrum 29
Davis breaks:
38,50,53,44,41,33,32,51,41,103,66,38,48,34,32,45,4 1,37,34,46,33,30,47,30,32,93,40,62.
Lindrum breaks:
81,75,30,70,56,73,55,80,32,56,31,46,47,93,58,36,47 ,56,32,30,33,37,33,43,58,53,38.

The pockets of the old match table at Thurston's would have been tight imo and more suited to billiards.

Pretty good breaks though.

To answer an earlier post, I think I am correct to say that ivories have never been used for a "professional" snooker tournament. They started to be phased out in the Billiards Championship in the 1920's. I would have to look it up for the exact dates.

[JamesFoster]

Reproduced from the other thread.

1937 World Final @ Thurstons, London
Joe Davis 32 Horace Lindrum 29
Davis breaks:
38,50,53,44,41,33,32,51,41,103,66,38,48,34,32,45,4 1,37,34,46,33,30,47,30,32,93,40,62.
Lindrum breaks:
81,75,30,70,56,73,55,80,32,56,31,46,47,93,58,36,47 ,56,32,30,33,37,33,43,58,53,38.

The pockets of the old match table at Thurston's would have been tight imo and more suited to billiards.

Pretty good breaks though.

To answer an earlier post, I think I am correct to say that ivories have never been used for a "professional" snooker tournament. They started to be phased out in the Billiards Championship in the 1920's. I would have to look it up for the exact dates.

Thurston in Chalk Farm Road, Camden was basically the gold standard of snooker shops. I have never seen anything like it. Anyway ivory balls were used until around 1964. They were heavy but they were expensive and they varied in weight from one ball to another. I actually have a set of ivory billiard balls my grandfather left me together with a very light one piece 16 once ash billiard cue. He was a pretty useful player and beat John Spencer at billiards and Rex Williams at snooker at the Oxford conservative club in the late 1960s. He as already about 62 at the time. Anyway he learnt to play billiards as a young man in his 20s in a working mens club in Dewsbury. But he said Joe Davis was the greatest snooker player and looking at his record who can argue. And I wonder who today could play to that standard with those conditions. Watch Joe Davis make the first televised 100 break in 1962. And by the way he was well past his best by this time. Also he was the first snooker player to use screw, stun, side and top spin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ2wlxQHbVg

[Geoff Large]

Thurston in Chalk Farm Road, Camden was basically the gold standard of snooker shops. I have never seen anything like it. Anyway ivory balls were used until around 1964. They were heavy but they were expensive and they varied in weight from one ball to another. I actually have a set of ivory billiard balls my grandfather left me together with a very light one piece 16 once ash billiard cue. He was a pretty useful player and beat John Spencer at billiards and Rex Williams at snooker at the Oxford conservative club in the late 1960s. He as already about 62 at the time. Anyway he learnt to play billiards as a young man in his 20s in a working mens club in Dewsbury. But he said Joe Davis was the greatest snooker player and looking at his record who can argue. And I wonder who today could play to that standard with those conditions. Watch Joe Davis make the first televised 100 break in 1962. And by the way he was well past his best by this time. Also he was the first snooker player to use screw, stun, side and top spin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ2wlxQHbVg

Ivory balls where indeed not produced after around 1926/30 , Reworked balls where still done upto around late 1930s , the new bonzaline balls released around early 1930s where in Fact more expensive to buy than reworked ivory balls . I have a Catalogue from the year 1938 where it states this .
If Thurstons had ivory balls for sale in the 60s then this would have been old reworked stock from the late 1930s , Reworked would be old balls made new by returning and dying as new . New balls where oversized because they knew that they would go out of true and require returning at a later date .

As snooker was a new game and not realy established as a world tournament until well after the Ivory ball was last produced , then I am afraid it would be highly unlikly that ivory balls where ever played at world championship level in the Game of Snooker .
any ivory balls still in use in the 1960s would be old reworked balls and prob well past there sell by date , they all go out of shape within a few years of play , unlike the bonzaline balls which held their shape better , but with age they do crack and craze , it was not until the chrystalate sets apeared that Balls became realy accurate to play with .

One thing that I have noticed is that century break by Joe Davies was on a normal table without steel block cushions

[100-uper]

Ivory balls where indeed not produced after around 1926/30 , Reworked balls where still done upto around late 1930s , the new bonzaline balls released around early 1930s where in Fact more expensive to buy than reworked ivory balls . I have a Catalogue from the year 1938 where it states this .
If Thurstons had ivory balls for sale in the 60s then this would have been old reworked stock from the late 1930s , Reworked would be old balls made new by returning and dying as new . New balls where oversized because they knew that they would go out of true and require returning at a later date .

As snooker was a new game and not realy established as a world tournament until well after the Ivory ball was last produced , then I am afraid it would be highly unlikly that ivory balls where ever played at world championship level in the Game of Snooker .
any ivory balls still in use in the 1960s would be old reworked balls and prob well past there sell by date , they all go out of shape within a few years of play , unlike the bonzaline balls which held their shape better , but with age they do crack and craze , it was not until the chrystalate sets apeared that Balls became realy accurate to play with .

I agree that ivory balls were certainly not being made in the 1960s. Demand really started to drop off once the BA&CC ditched ivory for their championships and adopted Crystalate as the standard ball in 1926, quickly followed by the professionals. Even so, the supply of new ivory sets, mainly billiard balls as far as I can tell, were still available into the mid 1930s. Whether these came from a substantial stock which was held against a minimal and diminishing demand, or were from imported stock, I cannot say. I have an advert from December 1930 announcing that four firms of ivory turners in London were amalgamating into a single company, so clearly things were starting to get tough by this date. The war in 1939 certainly finished off this trade for good in England.

Interestingly the Bonzoline composition balls were generally more popular in England that Crystalate until the latter were adopted as the official ball by the BA&CC. Bonzolines were one of the first composition balls available, dating back to 1886, and at that time made in the USA. Crysalate balls were English and were produced by the Endolithic Ivory Co from about 1902. These companies amalgamated in 1922 when they became the Composition Billiard Ball Supply Co. Ltd., which many people will remember produced Crystalate balls up to 1988 when they were bought out by Saluc who now dominate the market.

I also agree that ivory snooker balls were never used in a professional snooker championship, or any other snooker championship as far as I can determine. However, as the manufacture of balls has evolved, in the early days at least, it was always aimed at achieving the same density as ivory in a ball which was the same size, so producing as near as possible the same characteristics. This was a major problem for the plastic (sorry, phenolic resin) balls, and Saluc were refused recognition of the Aramith ball for many years (they first applied in 1975) as they couldn't match the density achieved by the secret formula of Super Crystalate. This problem was eventually solved by them buying the company and apparently burning the formula, as all balls today seem to be much lighter than they were thirty years ago. Whether this is good or bad is a matter of opinion.

[Geoff Large]

Interesting that you think that the balls are a bit lighter now as I think this too , but I have been informed by people in the trade , that BCE ( Bristol coin equipment ) bought out the crytalate company , and licenced the manufacture to Arimith in Belgium who made the super crytalate ball for BCE to retail or sell themselves with BCE taking a fat percentage .
The machinery and the formula of the ball also left the country when BCE licenced the manufacture of the Crytalate balls by Arimith .
After 10 years the licence agreement expired and the option of manufacturing for BCE was ignored , at this time the price of the super crystalate was over £110 per set , and Arimith bought out their tournament ball in the blue and gold box which I have been told is realy the super crystalate process with lighter colours but at the now lower price of around £70 at the time of the change over .
They where able to do this because they where now not manufacturing for the middle men , BCE could not do anything because the machinery had been sold to Arimith .
Arimith did not use the word Crystalate in there sale of the new ball . and that is why we can enjoy a set of quality balls at such a competitive price of around £80 today .
A case of a British company getting too greedy , and a Belgium company taking full advantage of a situation of Greed .
Sell plenty at the right price or sell a few at extortionate price .
now I can not sustantiate any of the above because it is info passed down from fitter to fitter , but it kind of makes sense to me .
being a Billiard fitter at the time all this was going on , We had irate customers complaining of the price of the balls , and then all of a sudden after 10 years of high prices it suddenly drops down to a reasonable price .
I will have to study our old sales catalogues of the 80s and 90s to get the full picture of the price rise and drop .

in 1938 Elstons catalogue a chrystalate set of snooker balls where 176/- ( £8.80p ) a set / by 1964 they where £17.17/- (£17-85p ) / by 1998 they where £100 a set , I think they went up to £110 , but then by 2002 they had dropped to £70 . all prices where plus vat in the later catalogues.
In the 1938 catalogue we did not have any referance to ivory balls for sale or for returning . but I have a Padmore 1938 Catalogue with ivory balls for sale at £5 10/- ( £5.50p) yet chrystalate in the same catalogue are dearer at £8-16/- ( £8-80p) ( proof that the ivory ball was inferior to the chrystalate at this time ) exactley the same price as elston and hopkin was selling in 1938 . Bonzaline where also availabale at same price of £8-16/- ., Elston also sold a Resonite make ball set for 110/- ( £5-50p) .

as for the Ivory turners algamating , this makes sense as a lot of balls where reworked to lower diameters , but with less demand , it would come down to one company doing this , I doubt that they where making much of new stock though . and correctly the war must have finnished them off .