Category: Tiddlywinks Origins & Evolution

31 ❖ Tiddlywinks • with Other Cartoon Characters

This Bruin Boys Tidleywinks Game, by Chad Valley Games, is designed very much like the various Mickey Mouse Tidleywinks Disney games. This game exhibits the same arrangement of cartoon characters as on the Mickey Mouse Tidley Winks game both on the cover of the game and also on the game target. The Bruin Boys characters attended Mrs. Bruin’s […]

30 ❖ Tiddlywinks • with Hanna-Barbera Cartoon Characters

Huckleberry Hound • Tiddlywinks Games The Huckleberry Hound and related characters appeared in television cartoons produced by the Hanna-Barbera company, which was formed in 1957. The Huckleberry Hound Show cartoon television series was shown on American television from 1958 to 1961, and shown in repeats for many years thereafter. Like many other cartoon characters, Huckleberry Hound was licensed for […]

35 ❖ Tiddlywinks • Equipment Evolution

Winks A wink is the piece in a game of tiddlywinks that is flicked (by a squidger) to shoot it up in the air toward a target or other goal. Winks are predominantly solid circular discs with rounded edges. However, particularly in the earlier days, the winks in some sets were rings (called quoits), which, […]

29 ❖ Tiddlywinks • with Disney Cartoon Characters

UK • Chad Valley • Disney Tiddlywinks Games In the early 1930s, Chad Valley Games of Harborne, England garnered licenses from The Walt Disney Company in the United Kingdom for exclusive rights to use the cartoon characters from the Mickey Mouse and other Disney cartoons on its games across the British Empire (except for Canada) at […]

11 ❖ Tiddlywinks • Goes to War

Yes, tiddlywinks went to war. John Alfred Rivington patented a naval/land battle tiddlywinks game in 1899 in the UK. According to the patent: This invention relates to a game which is intended to represent a naval or land battle. The game according to this invention is played upon a board divided into squares, upon which […]

10 ❖ Tiddlywinks • A Barrage of Sports Simulations

A slew of sports succumbed to tiddlywinks frenzy, starting soon after 1890, with many continuing on to this very day. These most brisk and giddy-paced times. William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act II, iv, 6. Tiddlywinks • Quoits What are quoits? Simply put, quoits are round rings—rings with hollow centers. Indeed, they can be flicked using squidgers […]

8 ❖ Conquering the U.S. • Tiddledy Winks

Now let us return to 1890. The name of the game quickly fell into the public domain starting in 1890 (though in the United States, Parker Brothers attempted to trademark the name of the game, but was rebuffed by the U.S. Patent Office at the time.). The golden era of tiddlywinks as a craze, a […]

7 ❖ In the UK • Early Tiddledy Winks Competitors and Innovators

Acknowledgments Thanks to Malcolm J. Watkins for bringing the 1890 Barbados Herald advertisement for Flitterkins to my attention. Additional acknowledgments are incorporated throughout this article. In England, many other companies other than John Jaques & Son came out with games to capitalize on the rapidly growing tiddledy-winks market. But they couldn’t call the game Tiddledy-Winks […]

6 ❖ John Jaques & Son • Original Publishers of Tiddledy-Winks

It all started in 1795 when a spritely Thomas Jaques established himself as “Thomas Jaques: Manufacturer of Ivory, Hardwoods, Bone, and Tunbridge Ware.” Thomas took on his 15-year-old son, John Jaques, as an apprentice. Together, they expanded their product portfolio until John Jaques had a son himself. John Jaques II. He helped his father and […]

5 ❖ Tiddledy-Winks • J. A. Fincher’s Patent and Trademark

Securing the Patent and Trademark for Tiddledy-Winks The game’s afoot! [William Shakespeare, King Henry the Fifth, Act III, I, 31.] Tiddlywinks was first patented in England by Joseph Assheton Fincher of London as A New and Improved Game, though neither the patent title nor description use the words Tiddledy-winks or tiddlywinks nor anything similar. The patent application was filed on […]