Great Britain, ca. 1870. Folio-sized (46.1 x 28.0 x 9.3 cm). Full calf. Spine with gilt compartments with elaborate floral patterns and vignettes. Boards with gilt floral borders and blind-tooled floral panel. "Edges" marbled. Inside with rich gilt-decorated brown morocco panels with red and black inlays, together forming a backgammon board.

A wonderful, high-quality backgammon board, cleverly disguised as two 17th or 18th-century folios. The presence of a middle bar, however, indicates a date after 1850, and it is in this form that backgammon is still played today. It should be noted that the absence of peg holes indicates that it is not a (French) trictrac board, although the latter is essentially the same. A pleasant surprise in any library.