Welcome to the online billiard guide to pool and billiard
equipment. You can find here information on billiard
equipment including history and buying tips that will help
you choose the best billiard equipment and accessories and
stay in the limits of your budget.
Billiard Tables
The billiard table is the most important equipment in every
pool halls, bar and home billiard room. If you are planning
to establish a home billiard room, you will be required to
make the biggest investment here; billiard tables prices can
range from 1,000$ to over 10,000$. However, it does not
necessarily mean that you have to buy the 10,000$ pool table
in order to have an enjoyable billiards playing experience
in your home.
The most important feature in a billiard table is its
playing surface. The playing surfaces at the least expensive
billiard tables are composed of artificial materials such as
medium-density fiberboard, which do not offer an equal
playing experience as the one offered by quality billiard
tables with playing surfaces made of thick slate.
Billiard Balls
In the early history of billiards, the balls used in
billiard games were made of ivory and later of wood and
several types of plastics. In 1865, John Wesley Hyatt had
discovered that celluloid could be used as a substitute for
ivory in billiard balls. It was considered as one of the
most important inventions in the history of billiard
equipment, but later it has been found out that celluloid
causes billiard balls to explode. Nowadays, billiard balls
are composed of phenolic resin.
Pool Cues
Only in the end of the 17th century the pool cue, also known
as the cue stick had become part of the billiard equipment.
Prior to the invention of the cue, the game of billiards was
played with a mace and the players used to reverse it in
order to pull the balls from against the rail. The origin of
the word "cue" is from the French word "queue", which means
tail. At the beginning, only men billiard players were
allowed to use the cue because the acceptable assumption was
that women players would rip off the table cloth with the
sharp edges of the cue.
For information on other billiard equipment and accessories,
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