Guides › Domestic objects

Identifying gaming pieces and dice

Counters, tablemen, and dice loaded with history.

Play leaves pieces: bone and glass counters (plain discs, Roman glass 'buttons' in black and white), elaborately carved tablemen for tables/backgammon (medieval bone discs with beasts and rosettes), chess pieces in abstract Islamic-influenced or figurative forms, and marbles of stone, clay, and glass.

Dice are the delight: bone or antler cubes with ring-and-dot pips. Roman and medieval dice are often slightly irregular, and numbering arrangements vary (opposite faces summing to seven is common but not universal) — genuinely crooked or misnumbered dice for cheating are documented finds.

Record material, dimensions, pip/decoration layout (note which faces oppose which on dice), and wear. Domestic game pieces humanise a site instantly; describe them with the pleasure they deserve.

From the guide library inside Collectors Catalogues, a free app for cataloguing antiques and finds with honest, museum-grade records.

More on domestic objects

Identifying mirrors — Polished metal discs.

Identifying oil lamps — Nozzle, filling hole, and mold.

Identifying clay tobacco pipes — Bowl shape and heel marks.

Identifying agricultural tools — Sickles, billhooks, plough irons, and the seasons written in iron.

Identifying fishing gear — Hooks, net weights, and line sinkers from rivers, lakes, and coasts.

Identifying spindle whorls and loom weights — The flywheels and tensioners of home textile production.

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