Balls

[Kryten]

Not sure if this is best suited under Tables or Accessories! So apologies if in the wrong place

Would anyone be able to point me in the direction as how to identify age or type/material of a set of balls?
The set that I got with my antique (1900 era ish) Riley table is certainly quite old looking at the colours on them. Other than the white being damn close to yellow, the pink being faded orange and the green and blue nearly indistinguishable from eachother, I can see they're old but no idea if they're properly old or just a crap set of 1970's cheap and cheerfuls.
They're only ~43mm.





Quite piebald, no evidence of cracking, grain or crosshatching as I've seen on examples of some proper old balls.

[DeanH]

cue them in half and count the rings?


:biggrin:
sorry

[Kryten]

Oddly enough I've been quite tempted to cut one in half out of interest

[Big Splash!]

Very interesting. Old balls VMax should be able to nail this, or Mr Marmite, if they know the stuff they say they do? I'm thinking early crystallate but it's a guess. Did you notice any flames or sparks when you played with them Kryten?

[Kryten]

No, they didn't explode either (I had seen some history sites saying about that - I'd have loved to see the likes of Ronnie play with balls like that! Fireworks! )

[Geoff Large]

Old 1950s to 1970s balls most probably Vitalite or permac

not of any value as collectors would want them with the original box and mint condition , this set looks like it has been used and abused .

they are not ivory so no cross hatch marks or rings or grain of tusk to find on these

[Big Splash!]

Damn, I'd forgotten Vitalite and Permac. Cheers Geoff.

[Kryten]

Cheers.

Vitalite though? All I know of that is it being a sandwich spread with a catchy advert - one with a song now firmly implanted in my head!