Friday 5 April 2013

Cribbage boards

 Cribbage boards are pieces of equipment used to keep score in a game of cribbage. They are usually made of wood, with anywhere between 2 and 4 rows of holes, containing either 61 or 121 holes between them, reflecting the number of points the game is played to. The boards are supplied with several pegs, made of metal or wood, which are inserted into the holes, and advanced when points are scored.

  These boards come in a bewildering variety of shapes & formats. I have seen ones made of brass, others made of bone, but most are usually made of plain old wood. However, even wooden baords display a great variety in their construction.

Cribbage board- Jaques



This first example can be said to be representative of most of this species. It is made by Jaques of london , A famous maker of game equipment. It has 60 holes ( descounting the ones in which the pegs are placed in at the start), 30 on each side.

The pegs are stout little brass things. I coloured half of them black with a marker, so that I could distinguish them from the opposing side. Note the attractive trim down the middle of the board.


The pegs are stored in a cavity in the bottom of the board. It is closed with a metal lid.

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"Cribbage"~ Piatnik

 This second example is of a folding board from a game set by piatnik. It is extrememly small ( -----) , and like the Jaques example, has 60 holes.


The pegs are also of metal, but inlike the jaques example, there are only 4 pegs, two of which are golden in colour, the others silver. They are much thinner than the jaques pegs.


They are also stored in a cavity on the back of the board.

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Cribbage board- Hamley's 




Another folding board, this one from the  toy maker Hamley's. Again, it has 60 holes. Note the two cavities on either side of the board. These were meant to contain a deck of cards . The two cavaties in the middle of the board contain the cribbage pegs.
As you can see here, the side with the holes is on the inside of the boards.
The pegs are also made of metal, but there are 12 of them all in all. They are stored in a cavaty in the middle of the board.

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cribbage board- anon


This brightly coloured folding board posses 121 holes, as opposed to the above 60 holed versions. The board also has 3 tracks, making it possible for up to 3 players to use this board for scoring a game, whatever it may be.
As shown in the above photograph, the track of the board has to be coiled in order for all 121 holes to be fitted into it. Here is a view of the start....

...and the finishing hole ( No. 121)

The pegs are made of plastic, but only one of them survives.