There's 10 of them now. 10!
How did this happen? A Redgrave bagatelle had been on my wantlist for a while. Then shortly after I discovered an auction in the UK for a scaled-down bar billiards table at a good price, and I had to go for it. I do not think that the Singer bagatelle will be sticking around.
For the sake of discussing them, I will number them. Tables number 1, 2, 5, 6, and 10 are all miniature / toy versions of tables that are regularly full-sized, usually 7-10 feet in length. Tables 3, 4, 7, 8 and 9 are all made for the home parlor / toy market.
- Cockamaroo: Seems to have began early 1800s. Left and right shooter lane, and uses a cue or mace for both. Place a King Ball at the top dot, and then there are 6 cups to land in on the way down, plus scoring columns along the bottom.
- Pin bagatelle with plunger, first seen mid 1800s. An example of how bells were introduced into the game. Dual shooting lanes, with one for the plunger, one for shooting with a cue. There is no King Ball spot here.
- 1876 Redgrave bagatelle. First USA patented coiled spring plunger from the front of the table, the way we now know with contemporary pinball.
- Singer bagatelle: different style of plunger to avoid Redgrave's patent. This has scoring slots along the bottom, a remnant from cockamaroo that would disappear by the 20th century.
- 9-hole English bagatelle: the classic English Bagatelle layout, 1 center cup encircled by 8 others. Still played within some parts of the UK and USA.
- Japanese rolling ball table: by 1870 there were variants of the English Bagetelle table sold that had cups in multiple lines. In Japan, early meiji era, tables like this were used for ball rolling, and points exchanged for prizes. This is the birth of modern redemption arcades.
- Japanese rolling ball toy: After the success of Japanese Rolling Ball in the USA, toy versions were sold from the 1900s to 1950s, though only some models had references to the Japanese origin.
- Poolette: post-ww2 bagatelle toy from Japan, similar to Corinthian tables popular in the early 30s
- 20th century bagatelle toy from the UK. Corinthian style board, but with springed plunger and bakelite (maybe) plastic surface.
- Bar Billiards: supposed "arriving from the Dutch" in the 1930s, bar billiards is still popular in parts of the UK today, as well as in a few other countries. Sometimes referred to as "Russian Billiards", the game has under-table troughs to bring sunk balls to the labeled point slots at the front.