The History & Origin of Snooker Balls

August 7th, 2009 by Norton Legg

by Norton Legg

The story of snooker balls, just like billiard balls, goes way back. It is a marvellous tale, full of myth and intrigue. It is a little known fact that were it not for a very smart inventor, we could have lost that most majestic of land mammals, the elephant! Long has been the need to satisfy the hunger to play snooker and other table games. Lets have a look at where snooker balls come from and find out what made the snooker table a much needed commodity.

Originally, the balls which were used to play on early snooker tables were made from wood and were popular all the way through to the sixteenth century. Despite the fact that these snooker balls were extremely well crafted, they were very susceptible to warping. No matter how fine your snooker table was, a warped snooker ball would no doubt have contributed to some very violent outbursts! Regardless of how fine and expensive your snooker table was, warped snooker balls would always ruin your game!

At the time of the seventeenth century, snooker ball manufacturers looked for new ways of making a better snooker ball, the answer was ivory!

Although only the wealthiest members of society could afford them, and those whose passion for snooker exceeded financial sense, ivory snooker balls began to be found on my snooker tables the world over. By the mid to late eighteenth century, elephants had been hunted to the brink of extinction to satisfy our need to provide high quality balls for our snooker table.

Sensing a need to find a new type of ball as elephants became more scarce, one John Wesley Hyatt developed a nitrocellulose compound to replace the ivory ball in 1869.

The new compound suffered many problems however, the most famous problem being that if you hit the ball hard enough, it would explode. Exploding snooker and billiard balls were not looked kindly upon by those who had just spent a great deal of money on their new snooker table!

However, as every good snooker player knows, this story has a happy ending. Eventually “Bakelite” and “phenolic resin” balls were developed and they could be made with beautiful finishes and almost perfectly round. Better yet, they didn’t explode upon impact saving snooker tables the world over.

So, at your next private snooker tournament, you can tell your friends of the history of the snooker ball!

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