In MacGregor's 1917 catalog, the company offered leather-covered corkballs that looked just like baseballs only smaller, the size of golf balls like the ball offered here. MacGregor offered both leather-covered baseball-patterned corkballs and plain uncovered corkballs as practice golf balls. The leather covered balls cost 25 cents and the plain ones cost a dime.  

These golf ball size corkballs were also used to play the now obscure game of corkball. That game used long, skinny wood bats that resembled a broom stick and leather-covered cork balls similar in size to a golf ball in what was a version of baseball without bases that could be played in streets, backyards, and even indoors. 

This cork ball shows littel to no use, but there is a small repair to the leather the size of the end of a pencil eraser.  The auctioneer does not know when this ball was produced or if it was actually sold by MacGregor, but it is older, well made, and identical to what was illustrated in their 1917 catolog. A corkball did not need to be sold by MacGregor to be used as a practice ball. 

A vintage corkball identical in size to a golf ball is worthy of any vintage golf ball collection. Another example is in The Clubmakers Art, volume 2 page 767. 

The square dimple ball  shown in the images to provide perspective is not part of this lot.