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Auction: 314 - Numismatic Collector's Series Sale
Lot: 1084

Custer, George Armstrong Remarkable Manuscript Memorandum, unsigned, 3 pages, 4to, no place or date, listing the rules of the game of croquet, beginning with rule I and going through rule VII (which is incorrectly listed as a second number VI). Custer explains that "II: In commencing to play, each player, in their proper turn, places their ball at a distance from the starting post equal to twice the length of their mallet. III: The order of the wickets is as follows. Leaving the starting post players will take the 1st wicket, then the middle wicket from left to right, then the three wickets on the right of the table in their proper order. Then the middle wicket from right to left...If in passing through a wicket a player strikes another ball with the one they are playing, after the latter has passed the wicket they can claim the same privileges which such a shot entitles them to when not passing through a wicket...If in croqueting another ball a player allows his ball to move from its position, the ball croqueted may or may not be replaced at the option of the opposing players..." Some original ink blots, foxing at top edge, crisp folds with holes at intersections, but VG. Croquet using the modern rules set out here by Custer had just spread from England to the United States in the years after the Civil War. Possibly he had copied them out in order to introduce the pastime to friends and colleagues.

Sold for
$2,400