It Started With the Pegs: How We Ended Up Making Cribbage Boards

This one wasn't planned. Most of the best things in the shop aren't.

It started with cribbage pegs. I'd been making custom ones, little 3D printed pegs in whatever colours people wanted, and they took off faster than I expected. Then one day a customer asked the obvious question I somehow hadn't: “Can you make the board too?”

Well. Now I had to.

The pegs were the gateway. Custom 3D printed cribbage pegs, made in any colour, personalized with any name or initials you wanted. People loved that they could make them personal, match a team, or gift a set with someone's name right on them.

And every time a set of pegs went out the door, part of me wondered what board they were getting slid into. Probably some tired fold-up thing from a big-box store. These pegs deserved better.

So I built one. Then another. Then I stopped counting.

Each board starts as rough sawn hardwood from Bass Lake Saw Mill, just up the road here in Ontario. I cut it, plane it, sand it, and finish it by hand. No factory blank, no MDF with a photo of woodgrain printed on top. Real cherry or black walnut, milled local, turned into something with a name on it.

That last part is what changes everything. Your family name and the year it all started, laser engraved right into the board. Suddenly it's not a game you buy. It's a keepsake you keep.

Here's the thing nobody warns you about cribbage: you always lose the pegs. They roll under the couch, vanish into the junk drawer, end up in a kid's pocket. A board with no pegs is just a fancy cutting board.

So I built the fix right into the back. There's a magnetic storage box that holds the pegs snug against the board between games, so they travel with it and never wander off. And beside it, a keyhole slot, so when you're not playing the whole thing hangs on the wall like art.

That's my favourite part. It doesn't get shoved in a closet. It lives out where you can see it, name and year and all, and comes down when it's time to play.

You get to choose your wood, and it genuinely changes the character of the board. Cherry warms and deepens as it ages, so the one you hand down looks richer than the one you bought. Black walnut runs dark and dramatic, chocolate grain with the engraving cut clean across it.

The longer walnut board has one more thing going for it: a hand-drawn tree engraved along the bottom. Drawn by hand, not pulled from a clip-art folder. It can stand for whatever you want it to hold. Family, roots, the place it all started.

Two occasions this thing was basically built for.

Christmas. Cribbage is a holiday game. It comes out when the family is together, handed down from whichever grandparent taught everyone to count to fifteen. A board with the family name on it becomes the thing that appears every year, and eventually the thing someone inherits.

A fifth wedding anniversary. Here's a good one: the traditional gift for five years is wood. A cribbage board in cherry or walnut, engraved with the couple's name and the year they got married, is about as on-the-nose perfect as a fifth anniversary gift gets. Wood, personal, and something they'll actually use together for the next fifty years.

Housewarmings, retirements, Father's Day, a wedding. Anywhere you'd want to mark a year and a name, this fits.

Every board is made to order, one at a time, in cherry or black walnut. Add a set of custom pegs and it's fully yours, name and colours and all.

And since they're brand new, the first three boards go out at half off, with two free sets of personalized pegs on the house. After that they retail at $99.

Shop

Johnston Cribbage Board

$49.95

Shop

Wilson Cribbage Board

$49.95

Or see the whole lineup here: Crib Boards & Pegs.

Funny how a set of little plastic pegs turned into all this. That's usually how it goes around here.