Enjoy this classic children’s game with 10 high-quality pewter metal jacks, a rubber ball, and a wooden ball, all in durable leather bag.
Jacks has been played for more than 2,000 years with small sheep astragali, or “knucklebones.” Small pebbles or marbles were sometimes substituted for the bones. Metal jacks, which mimic the shape of the sheep bones, were probably not in wide use until the mid-nineteenth century, although a pewter jack found at Fortress Louisbourg in Nova Scotia is thought to be of eighteenth century origin.
Before the introduction of rubber balls, the pick-up combinations had to be done before a bone or pebble tossed in the air came back down, resulting in a more difficult game. This set includes a wooden ball as well as a rubber one to play this more difficult version.
