Vintage Wargaming: Games

Showing posts with label Games. Show all posts

Thursday, 23 April 2009

The Age of Battle

Since posting about the game "Battle" last week, I have tried without success to see if I could date the patent number it cites. However, I did obtain from Abebooks a copy of Yesterday's Shopping, a facsimile version of Gamages General Catalogue of 1914 (Gamages were listed on the game leaflet as its retailer). Sure enough, on page 191, the last page of the catalogues, there is an entry for this "exciting war game". As this is in a section called the Latest Table games, it seems reasonable to expect the game to be dated to around 1912 or 1913.

Well I never!

Thursday, 16 April 2009

Battle - the rules

Battle - the Standard Indoor Game

"Battle, as the newest standard indoor game, will be as much a part of the home as a pack of cards, or a draught board"...."Battle is not a passing craze, and is not intended to catch the public eye for a season, to be dropped."

I have a copy of a game called "Battle", whose sole makers and proprietors were Brooks & Co of Spiceal Street, Birmingham. There are 32 playing pieces, to be used on a chess board, a rule set and a blue advertising leaflet. My set came in a small cigar box. It was priced at 2/6 a set, and if in mahogany, 5s post free. There is no indication of date anywhere, but the cover cites the Patent 376/08. I haven't yet been able to discover if the year of registration can be deduced from this number - could it be 1908? From the types of units covered by the pieces and in the rules (gun battery, shell battery, cavalry) I would suspect id dates from maybe 15 years either side of the Great War. Gamages, who are listed as the retailer, opened in High Holborn in 1878 and closed in 1972. If anyone has any further information about this game, I would be glad to hear from you.

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This site uses a range of sources to provide access to information about wargaming, for the most part from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. These sources are mainly paper based, may be ephemeral (catalogues, price lists, painting instructions etc), and in general are not easily accessible elsewhere.

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