A Great Bankshot!

Check out the Bankshot Antiques website

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Listen to the Podcast of Donald and Dave's Bankshot Antiques

Nested away near a busy roadway system in Albany, NY is the Bankshot Antiques Billiard Service. Take a moment and listen to the podcast as Donald and Dave, professional artists, explain how they became one of the few full service pool restoration companies in America. 
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Below this slide show you will find comments about each picture

1. A view of our shop and some of the 60+ antique tables that we have accumulated – ranging in time from the 1870’s to the 1940’s, with 1870 to 1920 being the “golden age” of billiards.  Styles of the tables followed the furniture styles of the times – Victorian, Mission, Deco and so on.
2. A riveter which we got from the Hood Leather company which went out of business – which was the reason for us going into the pocket business.  Somebody had to do it.  This machine is cast-iron and weighs about 300 lbs.  Works great once we found the right rivets – which was harder than we thought – only works with just the right ones.  Machine dates from the 1800’s and is what we use to rivet the leather baskets to the iron covers.
3. A die for punching out the leather parts.  This one is for making the covers for a #6 type pocket iron.  There are all different kinds of irons and each requires it’s own die.  The press is a pneumatic one.  It is a small table -top version but weighs about 600 lbs. and delivers 15 tons of pressure.  It will punch all of our dies – except the one for the baskets which requires 30 tons of pressure.
4. Dave Grunenwald – one of the partners – sitting at our “Cowboy” sewing machine.  It is a heavy-duty “walking foot” type of machine used for sewing leather.
5. One of the pockets with all parts attached and ready for the final hand-stitching process to close it up around the iron.
6. An old ball shelf.  Shelves were numbered because the shelves were used as a scoring device as will as for ball storage.  When you sunk a ball you put it on your shelf.  There were lots of different games.  One example – “cribbage” where you need to sink two balls consecutively that totaled 15 – eg. the 12 and the 3.
7. A set of old clay balls before the invention of celluloid.  Billiards was responsible for the invention of plastics.  Sorry about that.
8. A “mace” – early forms of the game involved pushing of flinging the ball (similar to floor shuffleboard) instead of hitting with the leather tip on the cue.  Legend has it that a Frenchman in prison glued a bit of leather to the back end of his mace inventing the modern cue.

     9 &10.  An inlaid design from one of our rarest finds – “The Firemen’s
              Table” made by the Benedict company of Syracuse, NY in the 1870’s
              depicting scenes of firemen, burning buildings and fire equipment.
              Originally made as first prize for the firemen’s convention parade.
   11. Donald Bartholomay​ – one of the partners – working on final assembly of gorgeous leather    pockets

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Various Picts from Bankshot's Museum and Workshop & Nostalgia from the Pool Table Era

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Interesting Links about Pool Table History

I especially liked the following quote from this site, click here
Who was a famous "pool nut"? ... Shakespeare, Mary Queen of Scots, King James I, Mozart, Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Napoleon, Josephine, John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, Wild Bill Hickok, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Vincent Van Gogh, Charles Darwin, Queen Victoria, Pope Pius IX, Teddy Roosevelt, Neville Chamberlain, Al Capone, Babe Ruth, Cap Anson, Jackie Gleason, Paul Newman or Tom Cruise?
(To see the answer, click the link above!)

How are Pool Balls Made 
History of Pool