J. W. Spear & Söhne • Nürnberg, Germany
J. W. Spear & Söhne in Nürnberg, Bavaria (and J. W. Spear & Son in England, mostly importing the games from Bavaria) were prolific in issuing basic tiddlywinks games, under a number of names, in what I call the hand series. In the hand series of tiddlywinks games, the cover illustration simply shows a hand holding a squidger on a wink, usually without even a pot or a target shown on the cover. The person’s shirt cuff and jacket appear on the wrist in the upper-right corner of the cover. Quite a few game publishers other than Spear published games with just a hand shooting a wink on their covers on their entry-level tiddlywinks games.
These hand series Spear games were published over quite a few years and with a number of spellings of the name of the game. Most were sold in the UK, but the game shown here came was made in Bavaria with rules only in German, and the title on the rules is Tiddledy-Winks oder Floh-Spiel, combining the English name of the game with the German one. The name of this game as shown on the cover is simply TIDLEY WINKS, which was only used in England.
Stern-Tiddledy Winks (Star-Tiddledy Winks in English) was also produced by J. W. Spear & Söhne of Nürnberg-Doos (Nuremberg-Doos) in Bavaria. This game comes with 6 colors of winks (black, green, yellow, orange, blue, and red) and, notably, a six-pointed star target on which there are 7 scooped-out targets, colored in black, white, green, yellow, red, blue, and orange. The same game was sold in the UK under the name Star Tiddledy Winks, which appeared in Spear’s 1910 and 1913 trade catalogs and also in a 1914 newspaper advertisement in England.
It is important to note that this German game includes the English term Tiddledy Winks in its title. When World War I broke out in 1914, Germans stopped using the term Tiddledy Winks, and correspondingly, the British stopped importing games from Bavaria.
This interesting and universally popular parlor game includes the game board, large and small counters, and can involve as many people as there are large counters. In addition to the large counter called "schneller" (squidger), each person gets the small counters of the same color called "springers" (winks), which each player places in front of them at a prearranged, even distance from the board. It is now the player's task to let his springers jump into the indentations of the game board, which is placed in the middle of the table, which is done by pressing the edge of the springer with the schneller, whereupon the strength of the pressure results in a jump more or less of a distance in an arc. The game itself can now be played in several ways:
- You determine the order of the players by drawing lots and how many rounds are to be made in the game. Each player then in turn lets all his springers hop one after the other and whoever got the most into the indentations of the game board without distinguishing the colors wins the game.
- Play is by suit only, which means each player strives to get his springers into the same-colored indentations on the board and then counts each springer twice. The springers that fall into the slots of other colors only count once.
- All players direct their springers to the white hole and the winner is the one who has the most springers in that hole after completion; the other indentations do not count here.
Stern-Tiddledy-Winks.
Zu diesem interessanten und allgemein beliebten Gesellschaftsspiele gehören das Spielbrett, sowie große und kleine Marken und können sich daran soviele Personen beteiligen, als große Marken vorhanden sind.
Außer der großen Marke, die „Schneller” genannt wird, bekommt jede Person die kleinen Marken gleicher Farbe, „Springer” genannt, die jeder Spieler in einer vorher vereinbarten, gleichmäßigen Entfernung vom Spielbrett vor sich hinlegt. Es ist nun die Aufgabe des Spielers, seine Springer in die Vertiefungen des Spielbrettes, das in die Mitte des Tisches gestellt wird, hineinspringen zu lassen, was dadurch geschieht, daß man mit dem Schneller auf den Rand des Springers drückt, worauf dieser je nach.
Stärke des Druckes mehr oder minder weit im Bogen springt.
Das Spiel selbst kann nun auf verschiedene Art gespielt werden:
- Man bestimmt die Reihenfolge der Spieler durch Los und wieviel Runden im Spiele gemacht werden sollen. Jeder Spieler läßt dann der Reihe nach seine sämtlichen Springer hintereinander hüpfen und wer die meisten in die Vertiefungen des Spielbrettes ohne Unterschied der Farben, hineinbrachte, gewinnt das Spiel.
- Es wird nur nach Farben gespielt, d. h. es bemüht sich jeder Spieler, seine Springer in die Vertiefungen der gleichen Farbe des Spielbrettes zu bringen und zählt dann jede Marke doppelt.
Die Marken, die in die Vertiefungen anderer Farben fallen, zählen nur einfach. - Sämtliche Spieler dirigieren ihre Springer nach der weißen Vertiefung und ist auch hier derjenige Gewinner, der nach Beendigung die meisten seiner Springer in dieser Vertiefung aufzuweisen hat; die anderen Vertiefungen zählen hier nicht.
Verlag von J.W. SPEAR & SOHNE, Nürnberg – Doos.
J. W. Spear & Son (hereby known as Spear-Spiel in Nürnberg (Nuremberg, Germany) came out with SPEARS KNIPSSPIEL mit dem HOLZSCHUH (Spear’s Snap Game with the Wooden Shoe) in several languages. The version shown here was produced in Germany for the German market.
Note that the lower left of the cover, outside the main illustration’s border, has the text “Ges gesch”, as do the rules. That’s an abbreviation for gesetzlich geschützt, which means Registered according to the Collins Dictionary online. While we are not sure, we surmise that some element of this game was registered as a copyright. Nachdruck verboten (on the rules) means Reproduction prohibited.
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Spear produced Der Ritter Sport Fußball-Knips-Cup, which simulates Association football played on a felt pitch.
Ritter Sport, founded in 1912, is a German chocolate and cocoa maker. Spear-Spiel appears on the rules but not on the game box or felt playing pitch. The apron of the box shows 9 different 100 gram Ritter Sport chocolate bars in their wrappers: Nugot (nougat), Sahne + Mocha (cream and mocha), Marzipan Pfefferminz (marzipan peppermint), Joghurt (yogurt), Mocha, Marzipan, Vollmilch Trauben-Nuß (whole milk grape nut), Vollmilch (whole milk), and Halbbiter (half bitter).
