21 ❖ France • Jeu de la Puce
Nicolas & Keller (N. K. Atlas) In 1904, Léon Nicolas & Charles Keller formed their company, known as N. K. Atlas, on rue de l’Atlas in Paris. The company produced numerous games through 1924, when it was acquired by Georges Bonnet, who continued to produce a variety of games under the GB mark, including several varieties […]
14 ❖ Tiddlywinks • in Mushroom Containers
In addition to tiddlywinks games issued in rectangular wooden boxes, several other varieties of tiddlywinks games were produced in wooden containers in other shapes, notably in mushroom containers plus also in cylindrical wooden containers. German Mushroom • Flohspiel Games Predominantly in Germany (and also West Germany), tiddlywinks games were produced in wooden mushroom-shaped containers (both […]
13 ❖ Tiddlywinks • in Wooden Boxes
Many but not all of the earliest tiddlywinks games were published in wooden boxes. On some of these games there was a sliding wooden cover. And of course, some of these early tiddlywinks games were issued with wooden-framed bases that had cardboard covers. Quite a few of the early tiddlywinks games were issued in a […]
12 ❖ Tiddlywinks • Launching Into Space
The game ROCKET TO THE MOON, sporting Walt Disney characters, was published by Bell Toys & Games of London, England under a 1959 copyright by Walt Disney Productions Ltd. The cover depicts Mickey Mouse (carrying Astral Maps) and Donald Duck along with Pluto the dog gazing at a space rocket with Goofy and another character working […]
28 ❖ Tiddlywinks • with Animal Illustrations
While Tiddledy-Winks began as an adult craze in 1889 and 1890 in the UK and USA, the game quickly evolved to appeal mostly to children. Game publishers incorporated animals in game illustrations on the covers, targets, and sometime aprons of the games to make them more appealing to children. Amphibians on Tiddlywinks Games The earliest […]
32 ❖ Tiddlywinks • Advertising, Premium, and Promotional Games
A premium is an item given away or distributed at nominal cost by a company in conjunction with one of its products or brands. Premiums can be included in a box (such as inside a box of detergent) or be obtained via a tie-in advertisement included in a product or in collaborative advertising. Sometimes, premiums are sent by […]
27 ❖ Tiddlywinks • with Black Stereotype Caricatures
PAN-CAKE TIDDLY-WINKS sports a Black Mammy caricature of a Black woman on its cover, holding a stack of pancakes. The playing surface adds caricatures of two Black men. This game was produced by Russell Manufacturing Company of Leicester, Massachusetts in the 1920s (estimate). This game was issued in two very slightly different versions, one with […]
26 ❖ Tiddlywinks • Educational Games
Promoting addition. A large number of tiddlywinks games have targets segmented into areas that are marked with different numbers. Often, the center of the target contains a cup, and shooting a wink into the cup garners the highest number of points. However, missing the cup and landing in one of the numbered areas outside the […]
34 ❖ The Interlude
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. […]
9 ❖ Tiddlywinks • The Adult Party Game and Evolving to a Children’s Game
The Adult Party Game Photographs of people playing tiddlywinks in the 1890s are hard to come by. Cabinet card photographs are the form most likely found in this era. People in the photographs were ordinarily asked by the photographers not to smile, since smiling would likely result in blurry photographs due to the slow film […]