scan: 1960s Bridge Pool by American Shuffleboard Company

another carombolette descendant!

This is another scan from Gerry Halle. 

The earliest mention of bridge pool I found so far is in a 1969 issue of cashbox.

Cash Box 1969-08-09

 

 

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This blog stands in solidarity with all of the youth who are being terrorized by a fascist president who has declared them to be threats that must be eliminated.

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Please watch:  

a post-war Carombolette table? Red-Ball by Hirsh Coin Machine Corp (1946)

Stumbled on this while browsing Coin Machine Review issues from 1946 and want to save it for any ongoing carombolette research.

• 33.5" wide x 8;7" long 
• They claim the game takes 1 min 25 seconds
• They say they "discovered" Red Ball just before the war, but I assure you these tables were many decades old by this time. 
• There is a ball return at the front, which most carombolette tables do not have.  If the balls are being released to the front, then there must be holes at the bagatelle back-end.  I wish we could see a photograph of the bagatelle playfield.
• There is a  unit attached to the end which I assume is a coin unit, but also might count score.  I am unable to discern, and there is no text the refers to its operation. 

the full page

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This blog stands in protest against the USA's horrific attempts to eliminate trans people from society. Trans people have always existed, in every society, but the administration has embraced a moral panic, declared a war against reality, and says that trans people can no longer be allowed to exist. This includes making their healthcare illegal, censoring books and school curriculum from university level down to elementary school, and stoking the constant terrorist bomb and death threats against trans lives and institutions that don't also purge trans people.

This blog stands in solidarity with all of the youth who are being terrorized by a fascist president who has declared them to be threats that must be eliminated.

The USA is disappearing random brown people off the streets via unidentified masked men and shipping them off to notorious foreign prisons, all with no due process. Solidarity for all who are in the gaze of this American Nazism terror campaign against its own citizens.

Please read: Florida AG Subpoenas Venue For A List Of Guests Who Attended A Drag Show by S. Baum 

Please read: States sue Trump administration after more hospitals stop treating transgender youth by Selena Simmons-Duffin, Aaron Bolton

carombolette tables! billiards meets pin bagatelle

I have received extensive photos of a carombolette table from John Merana and I'm excited to share them here.  

I have another carombolette table to share, with some photographic provenance from 1963. In celebration of this, I have gone back and updated my original Carombolette post and even added a few more photographs there.

Brace yourself for one an onslaught of one of billiards coolest and quirkiest cousins!

I asked John to send me photos from underneath the table.  I know furniture nerds can use these kinds of details to better assess dates, and who doesn't love shots of wonderful joinery?

Some notes from John:

The Patent US242584 was filed in 1881 by Moses Bensinger and appears was in the Sales Catalog from that year.   

Moses Bensinger became the President of the Brunswick Balke-Collender Co from 1890-1904.  Pre-curser of Brunswick Pool Table company operating today

Marketed as Carombolette-A combination of Pigeonhole and Bagatelle

It seems to line up with the sales brochure on the larger model.  Sold at $65, which internet says $2,011 in today’s US Dollars

 

Construction

• 8.5' x 32' wide.  Height is 35” to rail on main playing field and 34” to rail on tapered end.
• Main Field is slate and wood under the tapered field 
• Not seeing any marks or plates.  Most hardware seems original but a few pieces look to have been replaced
• Talking to the prior owner who played it in the 1950’s and was later owner of it prior to me acquiring in 1999.
• Was at a club near High Point, NJ that had it in the 1950’s.
• Prior to that was believed to be in a Hotel/Bar near New York City
• Not sure when it was moved between 1880’s and 1950’s
• We believe to be Chestnut which was plentiful in the US prior to the blight that killed 99.9% of them. 
• The legs are definitely original as they match the color and texture of the construction of the rest of the wood on the table
• The affixation of the legs are notched in single pieces and joined with bolts and washers
• Main play surface is slate and pitched section is matching wood underlayment
• Some of the hardware may be original and some may be period to the 1950’s/1960’s when it was worked on.  Appears to have had some refinishing but it is all complete
• I believe these legs are the correct ones.  Wood matches, prior owner says so and the other picture of one you have appears to have a plywood finish on, not a period look so I think that one was re-done.  The Patent also shows spindles and the play surface is a little different than the patent.  Not unusual for a patent to show the concept and then the marketed item would have updates/upgrades. 

 

Images of this next table were sent to me by a Yvonne of Kory's Pool Table Service out of Michigan USA.

The prior table owner included these photographs, which were dated 1963 on the backside.

BAGATELLE P DE JONG 271-4430

BAGATELLE P DE JONG 271-4430

It is interesting to note that this table comes with wooden skittles. 

At a later date a metal plate was added:

Please see the original carombolette post for other photographs of tables.

 

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This blog stands in protest against the horrific eliminationist policies being enacted by the USA to remove trans people from society.  Trans people have always existed, in every society, but this fascist administration has declared a war against reality and says that trans people can no longer be allowed to exist.  Trump's executive orders say that trans children should be abused at school, in their home, in public, and at hospitals.  Trump's orders are a decree to destroy all traces of trans existence from society, and that all trans people are subhuman threats and liars who should not be allowed to exist publicly.  He is attacking children, he is attacking families, and he is delighting in his sadism.

This blog stands in solidarity with all of the youth who are being terrorized by a president who has declared them to be threats that must be eliminated. 

Please read: The Hidden Motive Behind Trump’s Attacks on Trans People by M. Gessen (archive link)

 

some more bagatelle notes

In this post I am going to be dumping references to bagatelle from some newspapers.  Many of these clips I'll later sift into the more overarching posts on this topic.  (will this post disappear if I integrate stuff into older posts on these topics?  Unsure...)

Below the cut you'll find information on bagatelle, russian billiards, bar billiards, etc

Doing a search through New York Historic Newspapers, the earliest mention of bagatelle to mean a game (on that site) seems to be 1819.

1819-08-17 Lansingburgh Gazette 

(if I go to your house and you have bagatelles and aeolian harps, I'll be very impressed)

on naming the bagatelles

It is hard to definitively understand the world of billiard variants.  The game(s) travelled the world many times over, some names were only used in certain regions, some regional-sounding names were given with little-to-no connection to those territories, and many times historical sources would naively swap names around.

This is another work-in-progress post where I'm going to try and collect some details, but I propose a singular takeaway: LET'S STOP CALLING THINGS "BAGATELLE".  Please?  Bagatelle is a toy home pinball game, it's a musical number, it's a literal TRIFLE synonym, it's a billiard board, it's an antique pin board, it's enough things.   Let's be more specific.

Quick summary of the styles I'm interested in:

9-hole bagatelle / English Bagatelle:  long and thin tables where you shoot from one end to pocket balls in the 9 shallow holes on the playfield.  These tables come up for sale somewhat regularly in the UK, and the folding versions come up occasionally in USA.  You don't often see it referenced as "9-hole bagatelle" but I am calling it that because it's explicitly descriptive.
My entry on 9-hole English bagatelle

Pin Bagatelle / French bagatelle / Parisian bagatelle / Russian Bagatelle / cockamaroo: a slanted table where balls are shot up a channel and then fall down through pins/pegs.  Full-sized tables of this type seem to be very rare / obscure, with smaller toy-sized versions being rather common.  Features like shooting method, playfield gimmicks, and score holes vary, and I use "pin bagatelle" as an overarching category covering these variants.
My entry on pin bagatelle / French bagatelle

Klondike Pool / Tivoli Table / American Bagatelle / Manhattan: very similar to other pin bagatelles, except it employs a holes and a trough system to delivery the balls to the front.  Pretty obscure, but at least some copies are known to exist.  Late 19th century, and primarily American.
My entry on pin bagatelles includes a section on Klondike Pool

Japanese Rolling Ball / Tamakorogashi (玉ころがし) / Billard Japonais / Japanese Billiards: a long table like 9-hole bagatelle, but with holes arranged in rows and given a larger range of point values.  Typically the end of the table is rounded, but sometimes it is rectangular.  No cue is used, balls are rolled by hand.  Many home-made ones exist due to their ease of construction, especially in parts of Europe where it still has popularity as a fair game.
My entry on Japanese Rolling Ball

Pigeon Hole / Trou Madam / Parepa:  has holes to shoot through at one end.  Many 9-hole tables also had an add-on to make it a pigeon-hole table.  Dedicated tables of this type are very rare / obscure, especially the angled Parepa tables.  Pigeon-hole is more often played on English Bagatelle tables by inserting a wooden bridge.
The dedicated Pigeon Hole tables have a trough under the playfield that returns the balls to the front of the table, same as bar billiards.

My entry on pigeon hole / trou madam / bar billiards

1872 J. M. Brunswick catalog

1872 J. M. Brunswick catalog

Most billiard tables can be converted to a table like this by adding a wooden arch made to fit across the narrow cross-section of the playfield.  The game Trou Madam, dating to the 16th century, can have arches like this, and games like Mississippi are played in this manner.

Carombolette:  a variant of pigeon-hole that adds a pin-bagatelle feature on the other side of the gates.  These are very rare / obscure.  The stopper pictured below would allow the table to be played purely as a pigeon hole table.
My entry on carombolette

Bar billiards / Jenny Lind / Russian Billiards: Balls are shot from the front and into holes which channel the balls back to the front of the table.  Played with "skittles" (wooden pieces) on the playfield to avoid.  Common, still made and played today.
My entry on bar billiards
some videos on bar billiards

Jenny Lind Table - holes in the table direct balls to trough at the front
1872 J. M. Brunswick catalog 

Some other table games:

Toupie Hollandaise: no strong connection to billiards or bagatelle, but I'm including because people often lump these in with antique bagatelles.  It has skittles on a flat playfield, to be knocked over by a spinning top.  Also exists as a children's versions.
My entry on Toupie Hollandaise

Bowling Naco:  balls are rolled down and their angle modified by changing the shooter's angle.  Exists as a large parlor game, very popular in children's toys, and also exists as coin-op games.  Including here because it was made into a coin-op game in the 1930s around the time when pin bagatelle went coin-op too.

bagatelle notes: Carombolette and more

Carombolette seems to have been a bit of a novelty billiards table.  It took the "pigeon holes" / wooden gates / Mississippi bagatelle arches and introduced a tantalizing playground of pins and pockets you could apply some strategy to, but played heavily on chance.  Perhaps a compromise between the erratic nature of slanted pintable bagatelle and the more traditional billiards games?

 

This also seems to an early appearance of the stationary bell on a larger table, centered in the highest scoring pockets so to ring when a ball enters it.  Prior tables all have hanging bells that are chimed by the ball passing under.  I wonder if this would have been influenced from the Redgrave parlor bagatelles that arrived in the late 1870s?

The slant of the back portion of the playfield ensures gravity takes over and absolute control by the player is a bit of an illusion.  There was still a strong skill component in shooting the balls down the table and through the gates, but the randomness offers tantalization, and probably made it exceptionally fun for people to bet on.

To look at simpler bagatelles, go to this earlier post.  And we look at slanted pintable bagatelles.

Note: this article we re-edited on 2025-03-17

 

The earliest confirmed date we have for Carombolette is 1881, via USA patent 0242584, filed by M. Bensinger.

USA patent 0242584

USA patent 0242584

USA patent 0242584

 

Rearranging those patent drawings...

 

Thanks to the wonderful Brunswick archives, the earliest ad copy we've seen so far is from this 1883 catalogue: J.M. Brunswick & Balke Co. The Most Extensive Manufacturers Of Billiard And Pool Tables And General Billiard Supplies. (archive)

these are from the 1883 Brunswick catalogue

Carombolette!  You can see the wooden pool stop which would plug the holes so you could play like Pigeon Hole.

 

It would be fair to cast doubt on claims of carombolette tables from before 1881.  To be honest   For example...

This is a description given by the auction house.  Please note that auction descriptions are NOTORIOUS for their inaccuracies.  We have no evidence of the Count D'Artois having a pin bagatelle table, that's currently just a folk tale.  Where did the auction house get the 1857 date?  No one knows.

Montague Redgrave Bagatelle Company PARLOR BAGATE
1857. Impossible to find. This is the only one I have ever seen in the past 35 years of collecting. Complete restoration from top to bottom. This is the forerunner of pinball; first named around 1777 France, by King Louis 16ths brother Count D'Artois. This game has a Solid Slate playfield underneath the new felt covering. Redgrave was the first to make small games with a coil spring and a shooting rod which we now call the "ball shooter or plunger" which was patented in the USA. These games were so popular that he made larger ones like this particular model for Saloons and Beer Halls. This game was originally played with "Wickets" not Cue Sticks. This is a real find for the player and the historian alike. Degree of play difficulty: Very hard because we don't have the rules.
Condition Overall Condition (10). Size 104" L. 
liveauctioneers

This one has 9 gates and after the gates it slopes downward. 12 playfield holes, plus 3 pegged areas with bells inside.  Note the bolts used.  Do those look like bolts from 1857?  Do the legs? Still, I am happy to have the photographs.