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The North American Tiddlywinks Association T i d d l y w i n k s ! |
This article was originally published in the American Game Collectors Association's Game Researchers' Notes, ISSN 1050-6608, October 1996, with illustrations and content on the cover, on pages 5552 to 5561, and also on the back cover.
In the web version of this article, additional images have been added that did not appear in the original publication. Also please note that the AGCA is now known as the Association of Game & Puzzle Collectors.
A substantial majority of the information provided in the original 1996 article remains accurate to this day. However, quite a bit more background information has been gathered since. An update is warranted, and is in the works.
This article was originally posted on the Internet on 3 May 1997, and was updated on 2 April 1999, and then with updated images and links on 9 and 15 September 2006, plus a few more minor updates on 24 November 2006.
Tiddlywinks: By Rick Tucker © 1996 Richard W. Tucker. All Rights
Reserved "One should make a serious study of a pastime"—Alexander the Great [1] |
Table of Contents
|
| I’ve played tiddlywinks for 24 years, ever since I ventured
into a dormitory at MIT on my first day as a freshman and encountered (no
pun intended) the local denizens on their hands and knees shooting winks
across the carpet and down the stairs. (It really isn’t normally played on
the floor, actually.) I was captivated at the congruence (technical term,
sorry) of the ivory towers of MIT housing the noble sport of tiddlywinks,
and amazed that MIT might, perhaps inadvertantly (but not always), lend
credence to a sport enmired in such a mischievous stereotype. Tiddlywinks
appealed to me because of its unique character, because it is almost
universally known, and because it demands precise dexterous skills, while
also requiring strategy and tactics, and also a measure of luck. And so, what follows is the first definitive history of tiddlywinks boxed games. There is a history in all men’s lives.[2] I invite and expect to hear from game collectors and historians to help me add to, revise, and where necessary, fix errors in this history. I also invite you to visit my tiddlywinks web pages at http://www.tiddlywinks.org, where this article will appear subsequent to its publication in Games Researchers’ Notes, with all the photos in living color.
|
Setting the Stage: The Oft-Ridiculed Game
| "Have we sold our precious heritage in
exchange for frivolity and a game of tiddlywinks?", letter by Lillie Struble in Library
Journal[3]. This was the most unkindest cut of all.[4] "A 15th-century Donatello bronze, The Madonna and Child, served the Fitzwilliam family as a tiddlywinks bowl until the Victoria and Albert Museum [London] recognized its importance", ARTnews[5]. "Even in the matter of nursery games the Victorian child took things very seriously. There were some board games, however, which provided little or no intellectual stimulus. Chief among these was […] tiddlywinks, whose apparent inanity (to the uninitiated) is often regarded as the ultimate in useless activities.", James Mackay [6]. Prince Philip once suggested that tiddlywinks be included in the Olympics. To which Ian Wooldridge of the Olympic Committee responded: "At the risk of propagating royal support for tiddlywinks, a game of the utmost tedium played by anti-athletes too tired or apathetic to get up off the floor, I have to concede that his argument makes sense.", British Airways magazine.[7] "The research described in this chapter concerns a well-known children’s pastime, the game of tiddlywinks, where the idea is to take one counter and press it on the edge of another, to make the latter jump. Because this is extremely simple, the research centered less on cognizance of the movements actually carried out and more on conceptualization of the action in general and, above all, of its results on the object.", Jean Piaget [8]. All the world’s a stage. And all the men and women merely players. [9] Let’s return to the beginnings of tiddlywinks, back before the Internet (1969), TV (1923), radio (~1906), and even teddy bears (1903). However, the lights were on, and the telephone had been invented less than 15 years before… But wait, just a little context is required as introduction. |
| Tiddlywinks presents a paradox. It is unique
and it is generic. It is also a plural noun which is singular in construction [10], another
paradox of sorts. It is conceptually simple enough for most people to identify and to
understand, and yet an extraordinary number of variations exist and remain to be created.
Tiddlywinks has perhaps the most pervasive and negative stereotype of any game, and
yet it was a rampant adult fad in the US and England for nearly a decade in the 1890s and
to this day is played competitively with fervor by a coterie of well-educated winkers with
a propensity for pubs and drinking games. The little foolery that wise men have makes a
great show. [11] Its name derives from British rhyming slang for an unlicensed pub (tiddlywink and also kiddlywink), and yet the name was trademarked in 1889 as TIDDLEDY-WINKS [12], and has gone through dozens of spellings since. The general concept of tiddlywinks, that of flicking a wink with another instrument to make the wink flip into the air, is very basic, and yet there are over eighty approved patents known, starting in 1889. Tiddlywinks was an adult craze in the 1890s, then fell into "disrepute" as a simpleminded children’s game, and yet it has been played since 1955 by adult winkers who were graduated from places with names such as Cambridge University (in England), MIT, Oxford (again, England), Cornell, and Harvard. Game collectors have traditionally derided generic games since they are produced in great quantities and are often found in dubious condition. Yet, since tiddlywinks is a generic game, there are countless variations in game design, cover art, and the quality and materials of manufacture. Editions exist from the elite publishers (such as McLoughlin and Horsman) with superb lithography, detailed rules, and hand-made parts. And on the other hand, cheap versions abound that have compression plastic winks with burrs and cheap cardboard. However, the cover art, ultimately, is always intriguing, since it reflects the age and day of the set’s debut, from the Victorian parlor to the depression to World War II to the space age. So far, I have recorded over 130 known publishers of tiddlywinks games, with more being uncovered every day (in fact, two new ones today! (28 October 1996)). |
| As it turns out, the basic elements of the
rules of tiddlywinks have changed little since its invention in 1889. The game pieces of
tiddlywinks are the winks and the shooter, which has been called many things,
including a tiddledy, but nowadays is called a squidger. Over the years,
winks have been made of ivory, bone, celluloid, wood, plastic, and even metal. Winks have
been round, rings (quoits), square, and horseshoe-shaped. Squidgers are typically round
discs, but have also been square, pointed, tennis-racket-shaped, and golf-club-shaped. The key criterion (technically speaking) for declaring a game to be a tiddlywinks game is that the shooter is used by a human and is applied to a flat wink with a stroke that has a substantive downward component. This leaves out games where an instrument is used with a mainly horizontal stroke, such as in marbles, and omits games where the squidger is directly attached to the wink. Though this be madness, yet there is method in ’t. [13] The two key ingredients of tiddlywinks rules that were in effect in 1890, for most varieties thereafter, and remain intact today are:
|
| Tiddlywinks was first patented in England by Joseph Assheton Fincher of London as A New and Improved Game. The patent application was filed on 8 November 1888, the complete specification left on 8 August 1889, and it was accepted on 19 October 1889 (England patent 16,215 in 1888.) Fincher applied for TIDDLEDY-WINKS as a trademark in England on 29 January 1889, and it was approved on 15 May 1889 (# 85,800). A set is known to exist with the label "Joseph Fincher, Inventor", although Fincher is not at all well known as a games publisher. |
|
|
| Fincher’s pivotal role as the owner of
the first tiddlywinks patent and thereby as the catalyst in setting the world on fire with
tiddlywinks fever and fervor (at least for the next decade) may have been purely an
opportunistic or perhaps accidental move on his part. As it turns out, Fincher also
patented (in 1890) "Improvements in Sleeve Links". For the record, sleeve links
are also known as cufflinks. Ho hum. And in 1897, Fincher tried to patent a variety of
candlesticks, but the application was rejected. Never mind. We will always remember
Fincher as the inventor of the unique game of tiddlywinks. Over eighty patents have been approved for tiddlywinks games since Fincher’s application. In fact, the US Patent and Trademark Office has a subclass expressly for tiddlywinks (Class 273: AMUSEMENT DEVICES, GAMES; subclass 317: AERIAL PROJECTILE, TARGET THEREFOR, OR ACCESSORY; subclass 348: Target; subclass 353: Tiddlywink game). And there have been about 84 patents worldwide to date for tiddlywinks games, including 52 in the US. |
1890: The Year of Winks Rampant
| Now let us return to 1890. The name of the
game quickly fell into the public domain starting in 1890. The golden era of tiddlywinks
as a craze, a fad, began and lasted for nearly a decade. Fleet the time carelessly, as
they did in the golden world. [15] But the game was still spelled Tiddledy
Winks then, and some still spell it that way even today, even though the definitely
preferred modern spelling is tiddlywinks. The tiddlywinks spelling is known
to have been used as early as 1894, but wasn’t dominantly common until the 1950s. The first US tiddlywinks patent actually was from an Englishman, George Scott, who had already patented, in England, a golf version of the game. (The US application was on 6 June 1889, approved 22 March 1890.) The British journal Notes and Queries had a query in its 18 January 1890 issue (7th S. IX) "Can any of your correspondents inform me what is the derivation of the word ‘kiddlewink,’ or ‘tiddledy winks’? A friend tells me in the Midland Counties it denotes a house where beer is sold without a licence. Lately a game has been introduced here bearing the name of ‘Tiddledywinks.’—M.D., Lamaha House, Georgetown, Demerara" [British Guiana]. The earliest documented American date for a published item actually using the word "tiddledy winks" is 14 August 1890, when McLoughlin Brothers copyrighted "Directions for Playing The American and English Game of Tiddledy Winks". (Tiddlywinks patents did not refer specifically to "tiddlywinks" or "tiddledy winks" until around 1949.) And so what was the difference between the American and English games? That shall remain a mystery for now. An element of intrigue is essential to any pursuit. (Sorry, that is not from Shakespeare!). Shortly thereafter, US inventor Charles N. Hoyt of Brooklyn NY successfully patented two versions of tiddlywinks in 1890-1891. The first patent (# 441,099, filed 22 August 1890 and approved 18 November 1890) was directly in his name, but the second patent (# 453,480, filed 23 October 1890 and approved 2 June 1891) was registered as "Charles N. Hoyt, of Brooklyn, Assignor to McLaughlin (sic) Brothers, of New York, N.Y.". The drawing from the first (1890) Hoyt patent depicts a cushioned shooting pad which exactly matches the large (4-inch by 5-inch) sewn-together felt pads found in most of the early 1890s McLoughlin Bros. sets, and about which the patent specifically states "I prefer to construct said pads by placing one or two thickness of felt between two pieces of flannel and stitching, hemming or binding them together around the margin". Following are several McLoughlin sets from around 1890, some marked "Patent Pending", and some marked "Patented Nov. 18, 1890" (i.e., the first Hoyt patent). |
Image © 1996 Richard W. Tucker. All Rights
Reserved
McLoughlin Bros. "Tiddledy Winks Patent Pending",
1890
Image © 2006 Richard W. Tucker. All Rights
Reserved
McLoughlin Bros. "Tiddledy Winks Patent Nov. 18, 1890",
1890
Image © 1996 Richard W. Tucker. All Rights
Reserved
McLoughlin Bros., "Tiddledy Winks, Patented Nov. 18,1890", with woman’s
hands
| In the meantime, competition among games
manufacturers for newer and better tiddlywinks sets and varieties was becoming quite fierce.
In modern winks argot, any variation from the official modern tournament rules is deemed a
perversion. The most successful perversions are tiddlywinks versions of sports,
such as bowling, tennis, horseshoes, basketball, baseball, etc. (to be described in short
order here). The early 1890s saw a patent frenzy to claim unique niches in the tiddlywinks
marketplace, plus a few trademarks. The earliest reports of tiddlywinks innovations appear in The American Stationer, a trade magazine for stationery storekeepers who sold parlor games. The first notice about tiddlywinks appeared in the 18 September 1890 issue:
|
Image © 1996 Richard W. Tucker. All Rights Reserved
E. I. Horsman Jr.’s Tiddledy Winks Tennis, from patent
| (Author’s note: I should add at this
point that I am a willing purchaser of any Horsman tiddlywinks sets, Jr. or not!) Indeed, Edward Imeson Horsman, Jr. (Brooklyn NY) clearly thought he had a gold mine here, since he submitted a patent application for PARLOR-TENNIS on 22 September 1890, which was swiftly approved on 9 December 1890 (# 442,438), and then on 24 September 1890 he copyrighted "Tiddledy Wink Tennis—Rules for the Game". These would be the last patents, copyrights, or otherwise for tiddlywinks sets in his name, although he did come out with several other editions created by others… as we shall see. And on 9 October 1890 in The American Stationer:
This fellow’s wise enough to play the fool, And to do that well craves a kind of wit. [16] In the meantime, John D. Champlin, Jr. and Arthur E. Bostwick published The Young Folks’ Cyclopædia of Games and Sports (Henry Holt & Co., New York) which is dated in the foreword as 7 November 1890 and as 1890 on the cover page. This book contains the first TIDDLEDY WINKS rules published in a book in the US. And in the 4 December 1890 edition of The American Stationer:
The American Stationer of 18 December 1890 reports that:
|
| In addition to tennis and golf, a slew of
other sports succumbed to tiddlywinks frenzy, starting soon after 1890, and continuing to
this very day. These most brisk and giddy-paced times. [17] Jasper H. Singer copyrighted the rules for "Tiddledy Winks Quoits" on 31 January 1891. A few days later, 5 February 1891, Dock D. Harr applied for a patent (# 464,098) for a GAME-BOARD which involves
If you have never tried shooting a plastic or wooden or ivory ring (a quoit) with a disc, you might not think that it would fly through the air very well, but in fact, it does—very well. The patent was approved on 1 December 1891, and in the meantime, Dock. D. Harr copyrighted "Quti-Quoits" on 9 November 1891. But wait! The American Stationer of 26 February 1891 illustrates Ring-A-Peg, a tiddlywinks quoits game, in which
And (not so) curiously enough, E. I. Horsman came out with Ring-A-Peg, marked "PAT. APPLIED FOR", with his "E.I.H" in a diamond mark. |
Image © 1996-2006 Richard W. Tucker. All Rights Reserved
E. I. Horsman's RING-A-PEG · THE NEW GAME. 1890
| The first appearance of a bowling variant is
a copyright by William T. Maney on 6 March 1891 for "Directions for playing Tiddledy
Wink Ten Pins". However, William Sowdon of New York NY claimed a trademark for TIDDLEDY
WINK TEN PINS, in use by him since January 1891 and registered 13 October 1891 as
trademark 20,225. William Sowdon copyrighted his own rules for "Tiddledy Winks &
Tiddledy Wink Tenpins" on 28 August 1891. H. W. Coburn copyrighted the "Book of Rules for Tiddledy Wink Hop Scotch" on 9 March 1891. Parker Brothers sold TIDDLEDY WINKS HOP SCOTCH (as reported in The American Stationer, 22 October 1891). McLoughlin Brothers copyrighted the rules for "Tiddledy Wink Croquet" on 6 April 1891. I have not yet seen this edition. But E. I. Horsman came out with LO LO THE NEW PARLOR CROQUET GAME [18] (The American Stationer, 22 October 1891) where "colored disks represent the [croquet] balls and the ‘mallet disks’ are used to snap them into positions or through the arches". This Horsman set is labeled with "Copyrighted by L. E. Lawrence". Lest we forget: baseball was not left off the list of sports for which a tiddlywinks version was created. Patent 1,217,908 was issued to Charles B. Brewer and Harvey E. Haines on 6 March 1917 (application filed on 21 February 1914) for a tiddlywinks version of baseball. And a decade later, Chester W. Brown was granted patent 1,548,507 on 4 August 1925 (filed 16 April 1923). Each of these patents is dominated by a baseball field laid out on a board or felt. Winko Baseball [19] was published by Milton Bradley in the 1940s and also came out in an edition with the Coca-Cola brand. And Whitman/Western Publishing produced BIG LEAGUE BASEBALL GAME played with TIDDLEDY WINKS [20] in 1935. Horseshoe-shaped winks were claimed in a patent by Clarence Comstock (1925), and were marketed by Walbert Manufacturing as Pitch-em-Winks the table horse shoe game and also by Sears Roebuck. This game is one of very few that have both metal (aluminum) shooters (discs) and winks (horseshoe-shaped). |
Image © 1996 Richard W. Tucker. All Rights Reserved
Walbert Mfg.’s Pitch-Em-Winks, 1920s
| Basketball was a latecomer to
tiddlywinksization, but it has a bevy of tiddlywinks patents, more than any other sport:
James G. Davies in 1925,
Ervin G. Wagner in 1927,
Charles Fowler in 1929,
Hans B. Petersen
in 1939, Howard M. Hay in 1944,
Walter J. Watson & Jr. in 1952, and
John T. Kennoy in
1977. Curiously enough, however, I have yet to find an actual set in circulation or cited
in collector books. The disc in Charles Fowler’s basketball game (1929) has "its
opposite surfaces differently marked so that the possession of the disc may be determined
by the uppermost marking each time the disc comes to rest during the play of the
game." (American) Football, of course, was not spared. Three American patents are known, each issued in 1928 to Sidney G. Hands, Morris E. Yaraus, and Alfred Hustwick, individually. Morris E. Yaraus in his Indoor Parlor Miniature Football Game had each "disk convexed on one side and concaved on the other side, a stylus adapted to move the [disk] horizontally along the said gridiron when brought in contact with the convexed edge of said [disk], and to raise the [disk] in an arc when contacted with the concaved side." And again, no editions are yet known. Wherefore are these things hid? [21] And soccer (European football) and hockey round out (well, not quite) the tiddlywinks sports simulations. The Chad Valley Games produced THE GREAT INDOOR GAME "SCRUM" around 1913 for European football enthusiasts, and American Leonard. F. Pierson patented a soccer version in 1918. Another American soccer patent was granted in 1977, to Enrique G. Duch. A hockey patent snuck in in 1979 to Anibal Romero and George Spector. Returning to golf: Two separate US patents were issued in 1902, one to Harry T. Coldwell, and one to Arthur F. Knight. Then 1925 (Henry Van Arsdale Jr.), 1932 (Elizabeth and Louis Livingston), 1950 (Vincent A. Freeman), and 1972 (James M. Park). None of these have been seen as boxed games. One known version is Chartier & Smith’s The ORIGINAL TID-O-LY GOLF, © 1949. TiddlyLinks was used in commerce 6 March 1962 by Raymond L. Eddy, Muncie IN, and registered as a trademark on 31 March 1964 (# 767,481) but later canceled due to a conflict with another trademark. After Horsman’s Tiddledy-Winks Tennis appeared in 1890, other tennis editions have also been sought after. Chas. H. Belknap produced Grasshopper Tennis in 1916, with the box opening to a full tennis court marked on green felt including a sewn net, and with wooden shooters shaped like tennis rackets. Sears also sold this edition in 1919. A British version, The Ernest Sewell "TIDDLYTENNIS" (Hoey collection) from Ernest Sewell’s London Magical Co., appeared in 1936, and was patented there. A leaflet included with this game calls it "THE WORLD’S GREATEST 1936 CRAZE! The Game that interested H.R.H. The Duke of Kent, at the British Industries Fair, Feb. 20th, 1936." And back in the US, Charles K. Van Riper patented a tennis layout in 1937. O. Schoenhut, Inc. produced TIDDLE TENNIS in 1938, which is the same year he obtained a trademark for the name. Only two US patents exist for tiddlywinks tennis. |
Image © 1996 Richard W. Tucker. All Rights Reserved
Chas. H. Belknap’s Grasshopper Tennis, 1916
| Yes, tiddlywinks went to war. Battle Winks
[22]
appeared in 1903 (no details known). John A. Walls patented a naval war game in the US in
1917. Corey Games (East Boston MA) produced Tiddly Winks BARRAGE GAME (© 1941)
where, according to the rules, "Players place the winks, one at a time on the BATTERY
EMPLACEMENT. Each team now shoots his winks as fast as possible (without waiting for
turns), in an endeavor to land the winks in the opponent’s seaport, munitions dump,
air field, or capitol. […] any player who lands one wink in his opponent’s
capitol wins immediately." Several British varieties are known, including two patents (John Alfred Rivington in 1899 for a naval/land battle, and Robert Colin Harvey Webb for a war simulation in 1967), and J. Jaques & Son’s TIDDLEDY-WINKS AT SEA in 1913: "The Old Game of Tiddley (sic) Winks made very interesting with the Model of a Battleship. The scoring being taken from the different part[s] on which the shots land." [23] Bruce Whitehill [24] has loaned me a boxless set (of perhaps pre-1920 vintage) consisting of a yellow-orangeish felt mat with marked stations for wooden battleships. Each battleship has three metal spires onto which rings are to be shot. |
Selchow and Righter debuted a series of
wooden tiddlywinks sets with intriguing targets, as indicated in an advertisement (page
417) and article (page 503) in The American Stationer of 27 August 1891. Each
edition was 25 cents or $2.00 a dozen, and each was housed in a wooden box with a hinge.
|
Image © 1996 Richard W. Tucker. All Rights Reserved
Selchow and Righter’s Cricket, inside, bottom
compartment. 1891
Image © 1996 Richard W. Tucker. All Rights Reserved
Selchow and Righter’s Pedro, inside, top. 1891
Seven years after the appearance of Pedro and Snap Dragon, Johannes Klauder obtained a patent for a game in which rings were caught by hooks in his Ring Game (1898). And in a different twist, in William R. Purnell’s patent for a Radio Game (1924), a wink has a hook on it, and is to be propelled to catch on a wire. Some patented targets are invitingly complex, such as that of Charles Zimmerling (patented 1892) which I hope to find somewhere. It is a vertical circular board on which is mounted a "king cup" and 19 "general cups", plus a chute to a separate cup. Each cup "may be of different tones, which, as is evident, will be pleasantly apparent when the chips strike or enter the same." A similarly musical tiddlywinks set of Victorian vintage is reported by Brian Jewell [25]: a "Tiddlywinks Tower [which] was a miniature bell tower made from either tin plate or wood. The object was to flick the tiddlywink into one of the window openings and so ring the bell." While no Zimmerling editions have been found, Zimmerling did indeed copyright a photograph entitled "Propelling the Disc" in 1892, a drawing of the same name in 1893, and a print of "The Parlor Target" in 1895. This provides circumstantial evidence that Zimmerling tiddlywinks sets were actually produced and lends some hope that they will ultimately turn up in my collection. |
Image © 1996 Richard W. Tucker. All Rights Reserved
Charles Zimmerling’s 1892 patent drawing.
| Rectangular pieces were used in
George H.
Johnson’s Ballot-Box Game patent (1925) where the discs have "one State
designated on each side thereof, a number thereone corresponding to the number of
electoral votes…, the sides of said discs also representing the two principal
parties." In Barn Yard Tiddledy Winks (1930, publisher not given on box, but reported to be Parker Brothers in Lee Dennis [26] and elsewhere), the objective is to shoot winks so they knock down the barn yard animals, including a cow, goat, sheep, and chicks. A set with an analogous target set-up is E. I. Horsman’s Over the Garden Fence (Lilly Library, Indiana University [27]), although the main objective in this game is to land in specific areas such as in a fountain. Robert B. Mars (1969) marked discs with "letters of the alphabet, or numbers or words or mathematical symbols." Then there is Emerson F. Maryn’s Mathematical Tiddly-wink Apparatus (1975) in which winks are made of two parts, pivotally connected, so that "after all players have taken their turns then each player…. Opens each wink to expose the mathematical formula imprinted thereon. Each player must then work the mathematical forumla to arrive at the correct solution. … The winner of the game is the player having the highest mathematical score such that the player with the most winks in the container is not necessarily the winner. An innovative variety of the early 1970s is Kangawinks (currently being unearthed in a basement archaeological dig in Silver Spring MD), whereinwhich a kangaroo’s pouch is the target. |
Avon: Kangawinks
| And, in the it-had-to-happen category, is Gibsons Games’ Widdly Tinks (around 1992) in which a loo (i.e., a toilet) is the target for the winks. |
Image © 1996 Richard W. Tucker. All Rights Reserved
Gibsons Games’ Widdly Tinks
| Of course, the reviled (to many game collectors, though not by me) ultra-common tiddlywinks sets put out by Milton Bradley, Parker Brothers, Whitman, and scores of other publishers have simple targets such as a cup or a cardboard layout marked with concentric circles and numbered values. Often, the same set inside will appear with dozens of very different cover art versions over a decade or more. |
The Adult Party Game and The Children’s Game
| In the early 1890s, tiddlywinks was
principally an adult game, and parties were held to play Progressive Tiddledy Winks
(mentioned in the Young Folks Cyclopædia cited earlier, 7 November 1890).
The Parker Brothers Progressive party edition (©1891) contained 4 full sets,
scorecards, and gold, silver, and red stars. In this game, "partners who win at the
head table each place a gold star upon their score cards. Partners who lose at the
booby table place a red star upon their score cards. Partners who progress at any
of the tables each place a silver star upon their cards. […] Royal,
Progressive, and Booby prizes may be awarded to those having the largest number of
respective stars." McLoughlin Bros. also sold a Progressive Tiddledy Winks set,
which was sold for $3.00 according to an ad in The American Stationer (19 February
1891). McLoughlin copyrighted "Progressive Tiddledy Winks, Rules and
Suggestions" on 7 March 1891. [IM12MCLP.GIF: McLoughlin Progressive Tiddledy Winks] And from correspondence of Lady Emily Lutyens (grand-daughter of Bulwer-Lytton), writing on 24 April 1892 at the age of 17:
One of the most common 1890s series of tiddlywinks sets are the Parker Brothers THE POPULAR GAME OF TIDDLEDY WINKS and similar editions, all with 4 or more people playing at a table. This series reveals an interesting sociological trend: the evolution of tiddlywinks from an adult game to a children’s game. Three Parker sets in my collection (shown below) depict adults playing winks and a perhaps a child watching. Another two sets show two adults watching as two children (boy and girl) play (one of these was sold by Sears in its catalog as late as 1919). Several other sets, such as Chaffee and Selchow (1899) and The Interesting Game of Mumbly Peg (The American Toy Airship Company) show adults playing. |
Image © 1996 Richard W. Tucker. All Rights Reserved
Parker Brothers, THE POPULAR GAME OF TIDDLEDY WINKS · SALEM EDITION · NEW · 1897
Image © 1996 Richard W. Tucker. All Rights Reserved
American Toy Airship Co.: Mumbly Peg
Image © 1996 Richard W. Tucker. All Rights Reserved
CHS-01, Chaffee & Selchow's Game of TIDDLE DY WINKS,
1899
Even in the early 1890s, tiddlywinks was
already well on its way to becoming a children’s game. The reknowned author of
juvenile tales, John Kendrick Bangs, wrote two books with tiddlywinks featured as the main
characters. In Tiddledywink Tales (1891):
Animals are a favorite topic for the cover art, undoubtedly designed to appeal to children. In my collection, the cats have 6 covers, dogs 4, crickets (2), and then one each for elephant, monkey, frog (McLoughlin’s Tiddledy Winks patent pending and patented 18 Nov. 1980), pigs, grasshopper, stork, rabbit, and one cover that has chipmunks, a cow and a horse skating (Milton Bradley # 4304, Tiddledy Winks, with artwork by H. Boylston Dummer). The sought-after Combination Tiddledy Winks with two cats on the cover is known both as a McLoughlin Bros. title (# 7748) and as a Milton Bradley title (# 4404), from the 1910s. A more precious McLoughlin cat cover (Tiddledy Winks • A Round Game (# 7728), early 1890s, depicts a smiling cat jumping rope along with dancing winks. |
Image © 1996 Richard W. Tucker. All Rights
Reserved
McLoughlin Bros. TIDDLEDY WINKS · A ROUND GAME. #7728 with
smiling cat jumping rope
Image © 1996 Richard W. Tucker. All Rights Reserved
Milton Bradley #4304, Artwork by H. Boylston Dummer
Image © 1996 Richard W. Tucker. All Rights Reserved
Milton Bradley #4404, COMBINATION TIDDLEDY WINKS (two cats)
| "We look to tiddlywinks to get us back
to the primeval simplicity of life", Reverend Edgar Ambrose Willis, the first
Secretary of the English Tiddlywinks Association in 1958 (one of The London
Observer’s Sayings of the Year). "MIT’s two saving graces are the tiddlywinks championship of North America and incredible graffiti", Playboy, September 1969, page 195. "The smart set of Des Moines (pop. 148,900), biggest city in Iowa, often amuse themselves with a parlor game: a modern variation of famed tiddle-dy-winks. […] It was invented by that skillful player, John Cowles, 29, who is to Des Moines what a dynamo is to a powerhouse." (John Cowles was the publisher of the Des Moines Register and Tribune-Capital), Time, 14 May 1928, page 26. "Tiddledy Winks. Shooting small disks into a cup by pressing quickly on the edge of the disks with another disk. Chief elements: Unusual Activity, Dexterity, Rivalry", The Pedagogical Seminary, Volume 7, Number 4, page 473, December 1900 in which 79 out of 3958 boys and 120 out of 4760 girls expressed a fondness for the game. (marbles being 603 of boys/56 of girls, and baseball 2697 of boys/245 of girls). |
| The box or container for tiddlywinks was made
of wood on a few occasions in the 1890s, but was mostly of cardboard. Most were
rectangular boxes, but some are roughly cylindrical containers, and a mushroom-shape is
popular. For cup targets, wood was used in most early editions, such as the McLoughlin ones in the early1890s; glass started appearing for example in the Parker 1897 editions (although some are wood), and then one of basket weave, and then of course, all too soon, the inaudible and noiseless foot of time [29] ensued, and plastic took over. True is it that we have seen better days. [30] Winks, as stated before, were made, at various points in time, of ivory, wood, vegetable ivory, celluloid, metal, and plastic And concluding this brief section: shooting surfaces were in the early McLoughlin era of sewn flannel and felt; and shortly after of large felt playing surfaces (Hop Scotch, naval simulation, Grasshopper Tennis, etc.). Later, the shooting pads were small felt pieces of medium thickness, and in the past decade or so, the ultracheap sets have had no felt or hard, thin felt. |
Advertising, Premiums, & Promotions
| "All consumers of LEVERING’S RELIABLE ‘E. L. C.’ Roasted Coffee can easily obtain one of these games [Levering’s Table Quoits, early 1890s], without any expense to themselves by sending us Twenty (20) of the Monograms E. L. C. (as below) cut from the face of one (1) pound packages of our ‘E. L. C.’ Roasted Coffee." E. Levering & Co., Importers, Jobbers & Roasters of Coffee, Baltimore MD (Est. 1842). This promotional game comes with a very nice felt playing surface (also advertising Levering’s Coffee) which has a thin wooden stick coming up through the middle of the mat. The winks that are played are not discs but instead are rings (also called quoits). |
Image © 1996 Richard W. Tucker. All Rights Reserved
Levering’s Table Quoits
| Trix cereal from General Mills
contained a tiddlywinks premium in 1965, which was used by Severin Drix, the founder of
the Cornell tiddlywinks team, in its first year. The Trix set is rather petite: it
consists of a round, short cylindrical target which doubles as the bottom of the snap-shut
plastic case for holding the winks. Each wink includes an embossed image of the trademark
Trix rabbit with its ears akimbo. Pascal Pontremoli of Paris, France has kindly alerted me to several French premium editions: Le Clown, Jeu de Puces in Pif Gadget number 290, and a Pif surprise #1275 (gadget 37), a winks version of European football, "Foot", from 1969. (By the way, jeu de puces means tiddlywinks, and literally translates as game of fleas. That’s true for tiddlywinks in most Romance and Slavic languages.) Plus a Procter & Gamble (France) tiddlywinks set included as a Bonux laundry detergent bonus in 1984. |
| Entire realms of tiddlywinksiana have been elided from this article. The modern game, grounded in 1955 at Cambridge University in England; and the royal match in 1958 with the radio troupe The Goons in defense of Prince Philip, and the foundation of the English Tiddlywinks Association (ETwA) in the same year. The Oxford tour of America in 1962, leading ultimately to the formation of the North American Tiddlywinks Association (NATwA) in 1966, and then a few years later to the revenge, the MIT trouncing tour of England in 1972, and the later resurgence of Cambridge University in the 1980s. |
This article only squidges the tip of the
iceberg of our tantalizing tiddlywinks heritage. What’s past is prologue. [31] Further
information is available. Please contact Rick Tucker
particularly if you have tiddlywinks sets for sale!
|