About Us

Hi!

I'm David Oakes, "The Cribbage Guy", maker of some of the finest cribbage boards from our workshop in northern Idaho.

I hail originally from Brighton, England and have been slowly heading west.  After college, I lived for ten years in Wales where I learned to carve Welsh Lovespoons, a traditional craft dating back to the 1500's.

After falling for an American lady, Marty, I emigrated to the States, and proudly became a U.S. citizen in 2001.  We lived in Michigan for almost ten years before moving west again to northern Idaho with our young son, John.  We found an idyllic spot in the woods, surrounded by mountains, rivers, and lakes.  Throughout this time we played much cribbage and gin rummy, treasuring our time playing at the local coffee shop.

Given the space, a new workshop and plenty of time, it wasn't long before I was working with wood again. I inherited some tools when my father passed and those just added to the joy of creating from wood. I started carving some more lovespoons, and of course cribbage boards. I have been developing and building my own specialized computer-assisted machinery to help with the manufacturing process. It certainly helps when some boards have almost 500 holes to drill, each needing to be carefully placed!

Most of my work is sold online through this website to customers from around the world.  We're not part-time hobbyists - this is our profession and we plan to continue to make boards that people will enjoy playing on for many years to come.

Marty looks after the website, the orders, accounts, production planning, packing, shipping and most everything besides designing and making the boards.

Thank you for reading this far - We hope our story inspires you to play more cribbage, learn woodcarving or just to chase your dreams!

And if you buy one of our boards, that would be great too!

David & Marty
The Cribbage Guy