Schafer's Combination-Recreation Board, ca. 1925
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GUEST:
This has been passed down to me through my family. It is a pool table game board that belonged to my great-grandfather. He had it in his pool hall in Ringsted, Iowa.
APPRAISER:
So when do you think that it was actually first in business in the pool hall?
GUEST:
I haven't been able to find out, but I think through the 1930s and '40s.
APPRAISER:
How long have you had it?
GUEST:
I've had it two years.
APPRAISER:
It's really a kind of a neat thing, you know? And a lot of people wouldn't even know what this is. I had a bit of an ill-spent youth and spent some time in the pool halls, and I remember games like this. This whole board would lay on a pool table. And this part would be nudged up under the cushion. And because there was a slope here, you would, you would shoot a pool ball up there, and the pool balls would lodge right in these things and stay there. And you can play three different games. You can play a poker game, you could play a keno game, where you, whoever got the highest number won the game. Or you could play the baseball game, which is this beautiful green here. And we see, it's a Schafer combination recreation board, made in Peoria, Illinois. Peoria is not too far from Chicago, and in the roaring '20s, Chicago was a major manufacturing place for gambling machines, slot machines, all manner of table games. And it would make sense that a company like this would be there, because this is a gambling sort of device, and also a gaming implement. I think this dates from the 1920s. What's really appealing about this is, it's so colorful, and it's really in wonderful condition. What I really like is the fact that you got this beautiful graphic of the baseball game.
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
Do you have any idea exactly what it cost?
GUEST:
It cost $22 when it's new. It's in pencil on the back.
APPRAISER:
$22. It's worth a little more now. It's very hard to evaluate some things, especially when it's a really rare thing. This is only the third one I know of that have been sold at auction. If I were to put a reasonable auction estimate on this, I think I would probably... try to be conservative, I think it should have an auction estimate of around $1,200 to $1,500.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm. Oh, very good.
APPRAISER:
And, you know, I'm just really excited to see it. It brings back my youth in the pool halls.
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