View source for Albany Billiard Ball Works, New York State


The Albany Billiard Ball Company was founded in 1868 by John Wesley Hyatt with assistance from Peter Kinnear and other investors. Manufacturing operations were originally set up in a machine shop owned by Kinnear that was situated in the south end of Albany, New York.  Kinnear would later gain majority interest in the firm and steer it into a highly successful business. By the late 1960s, cheaper imported billiard balls flooded the domestic market and almost doomed the company. In September 1977, David M. Carey acquired the company and renamed it the Albany-Hyatt Billiard Ball Company. Employing new marketing principles and lowering production costs, its product became highly competitive again. At present the company is the only major billiard ball firm in the United States.

John Wesley Hyatt (1837-1920) was the inventor of the celluloid billiard ball. Celluloid, besides being the base of photographic film, was a substitute for ivory, long the prime substance in billiard ball manufacture. The Hyatt "composition" ball, with a celluloid base, dominated the sport until the 1960s.

A more thorough history of the company can be found in ''Albany, Capitol City on the Hudson: An Illustrated History'' by John J. McEneny ([Woodland Hills, Calif.: Windsor Publications, 1981]).

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