This post talks about what to do when you need to buy a lot of boules at once. You might want to provide guest boules for your club, for classes that you’re going to teach, or to help start a new club at a school or rec center.
Here are some relevant considerations, based on our own experience.
- I assume that money is an issue, so your only real option (and it is a reasonable one) is to purchase inexpensive Chinese-made chrome leisure boules. As of 2017, expect to pay about $5 per boule, plus shipping.
- It is best to provide boules in identifiable 3-boule sets so each player can recognize his own set.
- New players have difficulty telling sets of boules apart, and can most easily detect differences in color. Therefore we suggest that you (a) buy sets with multiple colors (usually silver and gold) if possible, and (b) buy boules that have grooves and then use permanent marker pens (magic markers) to put color in the grooves. If the boules have 2 or 3 grooves, you can use two different colors when coloring the grooves of a set. The best colors to use are black, blue, and red. White paint may work well in the grooves of gold boules.
AS OF AUGUST 2017 PLAYABOULE NO LONGER SELLS PETANQUE BOULES.
One good strategy is to buy three of the
8-boule kits from Playaboule. Each kit comes with four 2-boule sets— two sets in silver and two sets in gold. Buy three of these kits and re-arrange the boules into eight 3-boule sets. Color in the grooves as you see fit. This will provide unique 3-boule sets for eight players.Petanque America’s 
most popular set of leisure boules contains six boules— one set of three smooth boules (not so good) and one set of three 2-grooved boules (good).
They also sell 3-boule sets with a choice of single grooves (narrow) and single grooves (wide).
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