What is this game involving white disks, fish, and wavy pieces?

Question

I'm wondering if someone might be able to help me out with an odd request. Living in Ireland, someone approached me to identify a game. They found games pieces in a very old wooden box (100 years or so old). There's three types of pieces, each made of a white stone (possibly marble):

• Very thin circular white disks, maybe an inch and a half in diameter. Maybe 20 or 30 of these.
• White fish pieces, maybe 5 to 10 of these.
• What I think are river pieces (wavy lines), 5 to 10 of these too

There were no instructions for play or title or anything. I'm not sure if it was a published game or just a cobbled together family game that was ever in any way well known.

So the pieces are made of something that almost looks like marble,could be some form of white stone. I dont have a photo but will try to get one. The pieces dont look that old, but i think the box kept them in good condition

Does anyone have any idea as to what this could be?

Answer 1

The material, age, lack of instructions, and the fact that some of them are shaped like fish, suggest that these are 19th-century gambling chips.

I am guessing based on the fact that some of them are in the form of fish, which was historically a common design for a gaming chip.

For example, see here for a reproduction of such chips.

Perhaps you could see if there is anything similar to your pieces on antiquegamblingchips.com?

Answer 2

Brandubh could be a good possibility. It's a variant of Tafl games.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tafl_games