The game of tiddlywinks 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 U.S. 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. [William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act I, ii, 97.]

It is also a plural noun that is singular in construction [Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, retrieved 26 April 2024, another paradox of sorts.

Its name derives from British rhyming slang for an unlicensed pub (tiddlywink and also kiddlywink), and yet the application for trademarking TIDDLEDY-WINKS in the UK was submitted in 1889 [Trade Marks Journal (England), 15 May 1889, page 476], and has gone through dozens of spellings since, including tidleywinks, tiddley winks, tiddlywinks, and more.

The general concept of tiddlywinks, that of flicking a wink with a squidger 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 often produced in great quantities and 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 top publishers (such as Jaques, McLoughlin, Parker Brothers, and E. I. 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 on their edges and cheap cardboard boxes. 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 and beyond.

As of April 2024, I have recorded over 442 known publishers of tiddlywinks games, with a total of 1778 games and variations among them.