This mesh-pattern solid gutty ball is not your normal mesh pattern ball. It is actually a much rarer line-cut ball! Such balls were a major step in the evolution of the golf ball, replacing the hand-hammered ball.  

A line-cut ball was originally molded in a smooth gutty mold and then removed and placed into a small cutting lathe designed to score the surface of gutta percha golf balls. The ballmaker would turn the lathe's handle and that caused the machine to rotate the ball, cutting lines into its surface. After the ballmaker cut one set of lines around the circumference of the ball, he would remove the ball, turned it 90 degrees, and then cut in a second set of lines. Typically, the resulting mesh pattern would be reasonably symmetrical, often making it hard to distinguish a line-cut ball from a molded mesh ball. 

On this ball, the mesh-pattern lines are clearly not symmetrical in places, as the ball maker did not cut the second set of lines at a right angle to the first set of lines. In addition, the lines on the ball are of various depths. Both of these elements are the result of the inconsistencies of scoring a ball on a ball lathe and turning the handle by hand. 

These inconsistencies create not only an interesting look, but they provide proof that this ball is a genuine line-cut ball, made after ballmakers stopped hand-hammering balls but before they used molds engraved with the mesh pattern found on line-cut balls. This would have occured roughly between the 1870s and 1890.

A brilliant, historical ball in mint condition. 

TCA2 V2 p 763-764