Made by William Currie & Company, Eclipse composite golf balls were produced under the third patent ever issued for a golf ball,  William Currie’s Dec 20, 1877 British Patent 4,838. This patent covered mixing additives into the gutta percha, such as ground cork, ground leather, vegetable fibers, etc.   The fact that the Eclipse is not made from pure gutta percha makes it a composite ball, although the actual ingredients and amounts included in the various Eclipse balls are not known. I personally believe they reduced the ingredients into powder form so they would mix with the gutta percha but the gutta percha, which was the main ingredient, did not look my if any different.  The additives used were much cheaper than gutta percha, so if a ball maker could stretch their supply of the organiic thermoplastic—using less to make more balls—that was good for their bottom line.  

The Eclipse had its fans. In its December 8, 1893, issue, Golf magazine gave a nice review and bit of background on this historic ball:

“The name of Messrs. Wm. Currie and Company, Caledonian Rubber Works, Edinburgh, has long been favourably known to golfers all over the world, not only for the impetus which they have given to the game itself, but for the added enjoyment which they have conferred on golfers by perfecting the Golf ball. For many years their well-known and justly-esteemed “ Eclipse ” Golf ball held the field, at least in the South of England ; and Mr. Horace Hutchinson, an ex-Champion, has left it on record that having played consistently with the ‘Eclipse,’ he found it in many respects superior to the gutta. At the present time a large number of players in the South and in our Colonics beyond the sea play regularly with the ‘Eclipse,’ on the ground that it does not hack, always keeps it shape, is less subject than the gutta to changes of temperature, and is, generally speaking, more economical. With the lapse of time and the gaining of experience Messrs. Currie have been enabled to introduce many improvements in the ‘Eclipse.’ For one thing, it is lighter than it used to be many years ago, and is not so ‘india-rubbery’ in the fall after the carry. It is very true on the putting-green, and leaves the club with less jerkiness and alacrity than the gutta when holing out. In a high wind, either ahead or across, it is subject to much less deflection than the gutta, while in frosty weather like the present it may be relied upon as being practically exempt from the defect of cracking, however severely topped by the iron club.

This Eclipse composite gutty is one of the older ones. It dates to somewhere in the 1880s, possibly in the early 1880s, and its exterior is wide cut and reminiscent of a hand-hammed pattern.  Currie made slightly different versions of the Eclipse into the early 1890s. This example appears unused and still retains most of its original paint. The Eclipse name is in block letters across one of the poles. It is a little hard to read, but its there. Given what this ball represents to the evolution of the golf ball, its age, and its condition. It is a treasure. 

Once part of the famed Frank Hardison golf ball collection, and comes with an LOA attesting to that fact from the Old Golf Shop in Pinehurst.