But if you got your hands on some of the earliest plastic billiard balls, that was a chance you took. Billiards photo by Leo Hidalgo (CC BY 2.0).

There was a time when taking a perfect shot in a game of billiards could cause the ball to explode. That’s because the balls were made of celluloid, an early plastic that was, unfortunately ...

Thanks to the Internet and cut-rate competition from cheap (and often cheaply made) overseas imports, billiard-supply retailers like Sequoia are fading quickly from the U.S. commercial landscape.

The golden age of bouncy balls began in 1965, with the introduction of the SuperBall. Wham-O claimed the toy was made of Zectron, an atomic-age label for synthetic rubber that was cured with ...

The Albany Billiard Ball Company was established in Albany, N.Y., in 1868, to capitalize on John Wesley Hyatt’s discovery of celluloid. It was renamed the Albany-Hyatt Billiard Ball Company in 1977, ...

Object Details Description The best billiard balls once came exclusively from the tusks of Asian elephants. No natural material other than elephant ivory had the physical size, strength, and beauty to ...