A beauty. I've found one or two of these over the years but it has been quite a while. It is a French petanque ball (petanque a version of boules), and is an early one, c. 1880s; they don't make iron studded ones like this anymore! From what I have learned about examples like this, the interior of the ball is likely olive wood, which was hand-shaped and sanded, and then the square iron nails were hammered in one by one, with each nail hole precisely placed so as not to affect the balance and weight distribution of the ball. On this example, darker nails were used to create a cross pattern, which would have distinguished one players balls for the others. I find examples like this really beautiful, including for how ancient they feel; seems as if the planet might burn but these balls would endure forever. I also understand that someone very knowledgable could look at this and determine the region in France where it was made, perhaps the specific maker.

Approx 3 3/4" in diameter.  Beautifully aged condition, and heavy. There is a bit of a pink substance (almost like pink eraser) caught in between nails here and there, as detailed.