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Spintops are among the oldest toys ever discovered by archaeologists. A clay top unearthed in Iraq was dated to 35th century BC-nearly six thousand years ago. The wooden top below was carved circa 1300BC and later discovered in the tomb of King Tut!

In 8th century BC, the ancient poet Homer sung of tops in the Iliad. Fagles translates one passage as:
"Ajax caught up [a stone] and struck Hektor above the rim of his shield close to his neck; the blow made him spin round like a top and reel in all directions."
Tops made from fruits, nuts and seeds have been discovered amongst indigenous tribes throughout the world.

It would seem a fascination with small spinning totems is nearly ubiquitous across cultures and though they come in all shapes and sizes, every top defies gravity in the exact same way.

A spinning top is held upright by angular momentum. As Newton said, objects in motion, stay in motion. They don't change direction or slow down without the application of an outside force. In fact, a well balanced top that is spun perfectly upright would never slow down if it were not for the energy lost to friction against the spinning surface.

Though the magical dance of the top is quite beautiful on a purely aesthetic level, human ingenuity soon recognized a greater potential for this ancient amusement and the top was enlisted for help with more practical purposes. Namely, gambling.

The "teetotum" is a flat sided top used to play a variety of "put and take" style games. In ancient Rome, the four sides were marked with the letters A, D, N and T which indicate the result of each spin. In latin Aufer means "take", Depone means "put down", Nihil means "nothing" and Totum means "all" or in this case, the whole pot.

This game was quite popular during the European Renaissance and is depicted in several famous paintings. Such as Bruegel's Children's Games, c. 1560:

Detail:

And Chardin's Boy with Top, c. 1735:

One of the most famous forms of teetotum was developed by jews in Germany sometime around the 1500's. Their version, inspired by the German game of "trendel" was called "dreidel."

Another version of the teetotum called "Put and take" enjoyed a brief renaissance in America during the 1920's. The game was extremely popular across the country and many varieties of tops were produced predominantly in metal.

However, because of the simplistic nature of the game and ease of manipulating the tops, gaffed spinners and cheating became so prevalent that the game was quickly outlawed. Some gaffed put and takes have rounded edges to alter the odds of winning. Others contain more sophisticated mechanisms as pictured below.

For the purposes of this post we will focus on tops that are spun by hand. In fact, many modern tops are still made by hand. Often from wood turned on a lathe.

Other tops are made of metal, glass or plastic. There is such a great variety of tops from around the world that famed architects Ray and Charles Eames produced a short film called "Tops" in 1969. The film features beautiful tops from around the world as well as some everyday objects that can be spun like tops.

(Watch the full video here.)

Using modern materials and technology designers have attempted to minimize friction as much as possible in order to create tops that spin for a very, very long time. Lacopo Simonelli currently holds the record with a non-mechanical top that spins for over 50 minutes.

Of course, one could nearly eliminate friction altogether with a magnetic spinning top.

As you can see, twirling tops have come a long way since the time of King Tut but this is only half of the amazing history of this enduring toy. In our next post, we'll discuss string driven tops from ancient china to the Las Vegas strip.

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Ancient Tops Spintops are among the oldest toys ever discovered by archaeologists. A clay top unearthed in Iraq was dated to 35th century BC-nearly six thousand years ago. The wooden top below was carved circa 1300BC and later discovered in the tomb of King Tut!

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Archaeologists say they have found the remains of a 4,000-year-old stone doll on the Mediterranean island of Pantelleria, between Sicily and Tunisia.

The 3cm head, crudely carved with eyes, nose and mouth and wavy hair, was found with a miniature set of terracotta cooking pots in the remains of two huts on the site of a fortified bronze age village at Mursia.

"We believe both the saucepans and the head were toys belonging to the girls who lived in this village around 4,000 years ago," said Fabrizio Nicoletti, of the University of Suor Orsola Benincasa in Naples, the archaeologist overseeing the dig.

"We wondered whether the head might be a religious symbol. But we have ruled that out because of the location in which the 'toys' were found [in children's living quarters]."

Pantelleria is thought to have been inhabited by African tribes who came in search of its abundant obsidian, a dark glassy volcanic rock prized for making tools and weapons.

The island, known as the Black Pearl of the Sun, was invaded by the Romans in 217BC, and by Arab forces five centuries later.

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Archaeologists say they have found the remains of a 4,000-year-old stone doll on the Mediterranean island of Pantelleria, between Sicily and Tunisia. The 3cm head, crudely carved with eyes, nose and mouth and wavy hair, was found with a miniature set of terracotta cooking pots in the remains of two huts on the site of a fortified bronze age village at Mursia.

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This seems to crop up in different cultures at different times. The above date given refers to the idea that Palamedes created the game and played it during the Trojan War.

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As the title of the game suggests, it was once played with actual bones. The playing pieces were knucklebones from mutton (sheep) legs. The Ancient Greeks called them "astragaloi." They could be used both in gambling games like dice and for telling the future (Grunfeld 162).

The game described here, which is actually called Knucklebones, is the ancestor of modern Jacks, also called Fivestones. According to Sophocles, Knucklebones was invented by Palamedes, who taught it to Greek soldiers fighting in the Trojan War, although it probably came from Asia originally. The Romans also played Knucklebones, and Roman soldiers brought the game to other countries. However, they were not solely responsible for the spread of the game because different versions of it are played all over the world, including places the Romans never visited (Grunfeld 162).

The rules for this game come from Games of the World edited by Frederic Grunfeld, pp. 162-163, with some additional information from The Way to Play by the Diagram Group, pp. 130-132.

Players: 2 to 4 (it's possible with more, but it can get awkward with too many people), it can also be played as a solo game

Object: To complete different phases (or "figures") of the game which involve tossing, catching, and picking up the "knucklebones" in different ways.

Equipment: Relax, you don't need real knucklebones to play this game. It can be played with various small objects, like stones, mini dice from a game store, or modern jacks. Whichever you choose, you will need a set of five.

The Jack: Because there is no ball in Knucklebones, like there is in a modern jacks set, one of the knucklebones will be used in place of the ball. This knucklebone is actually called the "jack." Of course, knucklebones (or the small objects you'll be using in place of the bones) don't really bounce, so when you toss the jack, you'll have to catch it before it hits the ground.

Basic Rules: The players play their way through different phases or "figures" of the game, completing each with no mistakes before moving on to the next one. As in modern Jacks, if a player accidentally bumps one of the other knucklebones besides the one he's picking up, drops a knucklebone, or fails to catch the jack in time, his turn ends. On his next turn, he will have to repeat the figure he was on from the beginning. He won't be able to move on to another figure until he finishes the one he's currently playing correctly.

Figures: The phases of the game can vary, depending on how the players want to play. The players are allowed to choose which figures they want to use and the order of the figures, although they have to be played in a sequence, one after another. Some of the figures are known by multiple names because the game was played in many different places, but the basic concepts are the same.

One basic figure that you can use to start was shown in a fresco found in Pompeii. The player throws the five knucklebones straight up with one hand, catching them all on the back of his hand (if he can). Then, he tosses them again from the back of his hand so he can catch them in his palm. You can use this figure to determine the order of play. The player who can catch the most knucklebones in this figure gets to be the first player.

Some of the figures in Knucklebones are almost identical to modern Jacks. Here is a basic description of some common Knucklebones figures:

Ones

The player tosses the knucklebones on the ground and then selects one of them to be the jack. With one hand, the player throws the jack straight up, picks up one of the other knucklebones, and catches the jack before it hits the ground. He keeps the knucklebone he just picked up in his other hand and picks up another in the same way. He keeps doing this until he's picked up all the knucklebones still on the ground.

Twos

This is like Ones, only the player picks up the knucklebones two at a time.

Threes

This is like Ones, only the player picks up three knucklebones at once and then picks up the remaining one by itself.

Fours

This is like Ones, only the player picks up the four knucklebones at the same time.

Under the Arch

The player scatters the knucklebones on the ground and uses his hand to make an arch near them with his thumb and forefinger touching the ground. With his other hand, he tosses the jack in the air and flicks a knucklebone under the arch before catching the jack. He continues flicking the knucklebones under the arch one at a time. As with the previous figures, he can repeat this figure by sending different numbers of knucklebones under the arch at a time in sequences from two to four. He must succeed with each number before he advances to the next.

Stables

This is a more complex version of Under the Arch. This time, the player holds his hand with the fingers spread apart and the fingertips touching the ground, forming four arches or "stables." The player tosses the jack and flicks a single knucklebone into a stable. If he can't actually get a knucklebone into a stable on one flick, he has to at least move it closer and catch the jack at the right time (Diagram Group 131). He does the same with each knucklebone, sending each one into a different stable. After he does that, he has to take each one out of the stables again.

Toad in the Hole

This is another variation of Under the Arch. In this version, the player has his thumb and forefinger touching to form a hole. He holds his hand so that the hole touches the ground and flicks the knucklebones through it one at a time at each toss of the jack. After he flicks the last knucklebone through the hole, he takes away the hand forming the hole and picks up all four knucklebones on a single toss of the jack, as in Fours.

Jump the Ditch

The player chooses one knucklebone to be the jack and sets the others on the ground in a line with a few inches between each one. The player tosses the jack and picks up just the first and third knucklebones in the line. Then, he tosses the jack again and picks up the second and fourth knucklebones.

Winning: The winner is the first player to successfully complete all the figures the players have agreed on in sequence.

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As the title of the game suggests, it was once played with actual bones. The playing pieces were knucklebones from mutton (sheep) legs. The Ancient Greeks called them "astragaloi." They could be used both in gambling games like dice and for telling the future (Grunfeld 162).

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The Kerameikos Archaeological Museum in Athens, Greece

So far in this series we've been focusing on some of the more visible aspects of the ancient world: death and burial; power and status; fashion; trade; and religion. Today we're going to be moving to one of the less visible parts of ancient society, but an absolutely integral one: the world of ancient children.

There are several sectors of society - marginal in ancient Greece - whose marginality makes it particularly difficult for us to recover their experiences. Slaves are perhaps the most prominent; women are another (and form the focus of my own research); and children are a third. Rarely - very rarely - we're able to catch a glimpse of their lives through some of the objects accidentally left behind: whether it's a graffito scratched by a child into the walls of Pompeii, or a beloved toy.

This terracotta horse on wheels was discovered in the Kerameikos, the potters' quarter of the ancient city of Athens to the north of the city - and also the site of an important cemetery from around 1200 BCE on. It was found in a grave, dating to around 900 BCE. Made of a simple lump of terracotta painted with black slip - you can see the mane and tail have been left unpainted - and decorated on the neck with geometric triangles, the horse balances by means of (now reconstructed) wooden axles on a set of four terracotta wheels. A hole in the horse's nose suggests that there may have also been an attachment for a bridle, now lost.

There's something very suggestive about a toy horse like this one - something you might easily be able to see a modern child playing with, without too much of a stretch of the imagination. But although it may well have been used as a toy, it is important not to jump to conclusions about its function - just because, to us today, it looks so obviously like a sort of miniature rocking horse. In fact, many small clay figurines discovered in graves like this one - often depicting animals like hares, dogs, or deer; or small human figures - are in fact thought to have been votive, that is, offerings to the gods; for all that they look to us like toys. Was this little horse originally a toy? I think so. But my sense is that, for the ancient Greeks who placed it in the grave, it took on a dual function: as both a well-loved toy accompanying the deceased beyond death, and as a ritual votive offering for the gods. It's an important reminder to us to be flexible in our interpretation of the objects of the ancient world - which, often, can move between registers we would not connect at all today.

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#HOCW10: Toy horse on wheels. From Athens, Greece. Circa 950 to 900 BCE.

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The Kerameikos Archaeological Museum in Athens, Greece So far in this series we've been focusing on some of the more visible aspects of the ancient world: death and burial; power and status; fashion; trade; and religion. Today we're going to be moving to one of the less visible parts of ancient society, but an absolutely integral one: the world of ancient children.

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This date is the earliest record of a Yo-Yo, however its origins are likely earlier and from China.

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It is believed that the yo-yo most likely originated in China. The first historical mention of the yo-yo, however, was from Greece in the year 500 B.C. These ancient toys were made out of wood, metal, or painted terra cotta disks and called just that, a disc. It was customary, when a child turned of age, to offer toys of their youth to certain gods. Due to the fragile nature of the material, it is presumed that the disks made of terra cotta (clay) were used for this purpose rather than for actual play. A vase painting from this time period shows a Greek youth playing with a yo-yo. Such vases, as well as an actual terra cotta disk can be found in the National Museum of Athens, Greece.

Even in ancient Egyptian temples, drawings of objects have been seen in the shape of yo-yos.

Historical records indicate that 16th century hunters in the Philippines hid up in trees and used a rock tied to a long cord, up to 20 feet in length, to throw at wild animals beneath them. The weapon was able to be pulled up and thrown back down for multiple attempts at the prey. This gave rise to the widespread idea that the practice was the true forerunner of the yo-yo, but this is a stretch of imagination and has no real basis in fact. It is extremely likely, however, that the yo-yo did travel from China not only to Greece, but also to the Philippines, where the yo-yo is known to have been a popular toy for children over a very long period of time.

The next historically dated mention of the yo-yo is a box from India made in the year 1765. This miniature box was hand-painted with the picture of a girl in a red dress playing with her yo-yo. Within the next 25 years, the yo-yo traveled from the Orient to Europe, specifically to the aristocracy (upper class) of Scotland and France and on to England. As it traveled, it became known by a variety of names.

In France, a painting dated to 1789 shows the 4 year-old, future King Louis XVII holding his l'emigrette. It was during this time of the French Revolution and the "Reign of Terror," that many of the French aristocracy were forced to flee to Paris, Germany and across other borders when their style of life was threatened by the peasant uprisings, taking their popular yo-yos made of glass and ivory with them. L'emigrette is a French term meaning to 'leave the country.' Another nickname for the yo-yo at this time was de Coblenz, which was a city to which many French fled. These names reflect an important historical connection between the toy and the French Revolution.

The yo-yo's value as a stress reliever is also seen through history. While being a fashionable toy for the French nobility, those less fortunate are said to have played with their emigrettes to reduce the understandable tension of their one-way trip to the guillotine. Dating through the 1780's, there are drawings of General Lafayette and others with their troops flinging their yo-yos. The yo-yo arrived in Paris in 1791 as it spread through France and was called the "joujou de Normandie." Some believe that this term may reflect possible roots for the modern American name of "yo-yo." High interest in the toy continued as evidenced by the famous French playwright, Beaumarchais, in his treatment of "The Marriage of Figaro" in 1792. There is a scene where the nervous Figaro enters and conveys his tension, not by the conventional

wringing of his hands, but playing with his emigrette! When asked what the emigrette is good for, Figaro responds, "It is a noble toy, which dispels the fatigue of thinking." Even on June 18, 1815, at the famous Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon and his army are known to have been seen relaxing with their yo-yos before battle.

The yo-yo craze traveled throughout Europe to England by way of Scotland and France. The English used the French word bandalore, the term quiz, and the word incroyable which means 'a French dandy', to identify the toy. In 1791, a print was circulated of the Prince of Wales, future George IV, whirling his bandalore. Because of the toy's popularity as well as the prince's power to sell, the toy also became known as the Prince of Wales' toy and soon became a toy that any person of fashion had to own. The toy's ongoing popularity in England is shown as late as 1862 when an illustration appeared showing two young lads terrifying an older woman with their quizzes.

The first recorded reference to any type of yo-yo in the United States was in 1866 when two men from Ohio received a patent for an invention called "an improved bandalore," in that it was rim weighted. One year later, a German immigrant named Charles Kirchof patented and manufactured the return wheel. From then until 1911, although various patents were awarded in the United States related to the yo-yo, nothing notable occurred. In 1916, the Scientific American Supplement published an article titled "Filipino Toys" which showed it and named it a yo-yo. This was explained by some as the Filipino word for "come-come" or "to return." Significant events were soon to happen in the United States.

Meanwhile, back in the Philippines, the natives were becoming experts at making and using the toy. They became excellent wood carvers of the yo-yo and playing with a yo-yo, beginning early in childhood, became a national pastime. Not surprisingly, it was from here that the yo-yo as we know it today was truly introduced into the United States. In the 1920s, a man named Pedro Flores brought the first Filipino yo-yo to the U.S. and in 1928, began a yo-yo company by the same name in California.

These yo-yos were hand-carved from a single piece of wood. The yo-yo was unique because it was the first yo-yo that did not have the string tied to the axle. Instead, the string was looped around the axle, allowing the yo-yo to spin or "sleep" at the end of the string. This concept is at the heart of yo-yoing today. Rather than being able to only go up and down, the yo-yo was now capable of doing an infinite number of tricks.

In 1928 or 1929, a businessman named Donald F. Duncan Sr. saw his first Flores yo-yo while he was in San Francisco. He saw the potential of the toy as he witnessed the crowd that Pedro was able to draw by doing a few tricks. He purchased not only the idea of the yo-yo, but the Pedro Flores company itself. And, as they say, "the rest is history."

Donald Duncan was an excellent businessman. He developed advertising campaigns and had demonstrators working for him in the U.S., as well as Western Europe. "Duncan Yo-Yo Professionals" traveled throughout the United States teaching and demonstrating yo-yo tricks and conducting contests in an effort to promote sales. Competition grew as other companies began to see the toy's potential. In 1932, in an effort to protect his interest, Duncan filed for and was assigned a trademark for the word "yo-yo." Not able to use the term "yo-yo," competitors were forced to use terms like "come-back", "return", "returning top", "whirl-a-gig", and "twirler" for their versions of the toy.

In 1946, the Duncan Company moved to Luck, Wisconsin, which quickly became known as the "Yo-Yo Capital of the World" producing 3,600 yo-yos per hour. They produced the original maple wooden yo-yos using 1,000,000 board feet per year. In 1960, plastic yo-yos that we still see today began to be manufactured. Sales grew and grew. By 1962, the Duncan Company alone sold a record 45 million yo-yos in a country with only 40 million kids, and still could not keep up with the demand. High television advertising expenses and excessive expenses in overtime wages and materials to keep up with the demand hurt profits. There was also the continual legal expense in trying to hold onto the trademarked word "yo-yo." Competitors fought hard to use it in describing their products. Finally, in 1965, the Federal Court of Appeals ruled that Duncan's trademark for the word "yo-yo" was no good. The term yo-yo had become so widespread that it was now a permanent part of the language and it no longer only described the toy. It, in fact, WAS the toy.

Tragically, in November of 1965, the Duncan Company could hold on no longer and was forced into bankruptcy. Although pieces of equipment were auctioned off to various buyers, Flambeau Plastics Company purchased the most valuable asset, the "Duncan" name and the goodwill that came along with it. It is the Flambeau Plastics Company that manufactures and sells the eleven different models of Duncan yo-yos today. June 6 has been deemed National Yo-Yo Day in honor of Donald Duncan Sr.'s birthday and the phenomenal influence he had in the world of yo.

Trivia enthusiasts will enjoy noting that in 1968, Abbie Hoffman was cited for contempt of Congress for "walking the dog" in an effort to entertain the House Subcommittee on Un-American Activities that was investigating him and Richard Nixon made headlines when he yo-yoed on stage at the opening of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville in 1974. The yo-yo is, indeed, universal.

In recent years, technology has affected a multitude of the products we use, and the seemingly simple yo-yo has been no exception. Beginning in the 1970s, yo-yo manufacturers, seeing the benefit of periphery weight distribution, began rim-weighting their products for a longer spin. In 1978, Tom Kuhn patented the "No Jive 3-in-1" yo-yo, the first take-apart by hand yo-yo and the first having a replaceable axle. In 1980, Michael Caffrey patented "The yo-yo with a Brain." In addition to a free-spinning sleeve bearing for long spin times, "The Brain" has a centrifugal spring loaded clutch mechanism that causes an automatic return of the yo-yo to the hand when the rotational spin slows to a pre-determined rate. And by the 1990s, transaxle yo-yos were available with ball-bearing axles, increasing spin times once again.

But this is not quite the end of the story. On April 12, 1985, the yo-yo was first taken into space by NASA on the Space Shuttle Discovery as part of the Toys in Space project. A basic spinning yo-yo was used to see what effect microgravity would have on it. What they discovered was that a yo-yo could be released at slow speeds and gracefully move along the string. However, the yo-yo refused to "sleep." Without the downward force of gravity, the yo-yo could not spin against the loop at the end of the string and so, rebounded up the string. It was also found that the yo-yo must be thrown, not dropped, as there was no gravity to pull it down. And on July 31, 1992, the yo-yo (an SB-2) again made its way into space, on the Space Shuttle Atlantis, this time for an educational video including slow-motion yo-ing.

Whether the yo-yo was a Chinese, Greek or Filipino invention or some combination is difficult to prove. By the same token, it is also difficult to say with certainty whether the toy spread from country to country or whether the same basic pattern for the toy appeared in completely different parts of the world for no obvious reason. We do know that its use as a toy around the world and throughout history is unmatched. And, although the yo-yo has gone through periods of hibernation in its trek through the ages, its popularity, just like the toy itself, always comes back.

References:
1. World on a String, Helane Zeiger, 1989
2. The One and Only Yo-Yo Book, George Malko, 1978
3. The Mature Person's Guide to Kites, Yo-Yos, Frisbees and other Childlike Diversions, Paul Dickson, 1977
4. The Klutz Yo-Yo Book, John Cassidy, 1987
5. Toys in Space, Dr. Carolyn Sumners, 1992
6. Daily Life in Greece at the Time of Pericles, Robert Flaceliere
7. American Scientist, "The Yo-Yo: A Toy Flywheel", March-April 1984, Wolfgang Burger
8. American Yo-Yo Association Newsletter, December 1994, "Pre-Duncan Yo-Yo Time Line", Lucky Meisenheimer, MD

Photo Credits:

1. Greek vase painting

Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz Antikenmuseum, Berlin

2. Greek terra cotta disk
(3 views)

Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fletcher Fund, 1928

3. Frenchman Andre' Boniface

Louis Mirabeau Library of Congress

4. English woman with boys

New York Public Library Photo Room

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yoyomuseum.com theyoyomuseum.com yo-yo yoyo yo museum exhibit curator history collector yo-yos

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You have found the most comprehensive archive of yo-yo images, historical memorabilia, and information in the world. Whether you're a long-time yo-yo collector, or just looking for that long lost treasure from your childhood, this is the place.

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Plaggonas were the favorite toys of girls and those with movable limbs were played with like the dolls of today. They dressed them in clothes sewn for the purpose by the women of the house.

Besides being fun, the dolls introduced the young female population to their destined roles: to be good wives, housewives, and mothers of healthy children.

(https://www.greecehighdefinition.com/blog/ancient-greek-toys-played-by-children-in-ancient-greece)

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The dating for this is very vague. Certainly a toy used by the Romans.

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Medieval Dolls - from c. 1000 AD onwards

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Medieval Dolls - from c. 1000 AD onwards

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Aelflaed of the Weald (India Ollerenshaw), 2002

There is no doubt that medieval children played with dolls. I offer here the details of my research into these timeless playthings, examining to the best of my ability the many types of dolls which were bought and sold, given and cherished by our forbears. Much of the information comes from the wealthy strata of society, chiefly because their toys were perhaps more durable and certainly more lavish, and therefore the more likely to be recorded and preserved, but there is ample evidence that paupers and princes alike found joy in dolls of very similar types.

The term 'doll' is not period. In medieval times, these ubiquitous toys were known as poppets or puppets, from the Latin pupa/pupus meaning 'new-born child' (Tuttle). They were also commonly called babies, often distinguished from live human babies by their place of manufacture - Bartholomew babies were purchased at Bartholomew Fair, and Flanders babies came from the Dutch lowlands. 'Mawmets' (or 'mammettes') (Orme, p. 52) is another English term, while in medieval Germany, dolls were called Docke or Tocke, after the blocks of wood from which the simplest figures were carved (Fritsch). The modern word, 'doll', a diminutive of the name Dorothy, came into use after the medieval period.

There are some difficulties in researching dolls which may not be immediately apparent. Chief among these is the use, throughout history and the world, of miniature human figures as idols for religious purposes. This is as true for Christian as for other religions. As late as 1414 Margery Kempe is recorded as meeting, in Italy, a woman who travelled about with an image of the infant Christ which was reverentially dressed in clothes (Orme, pp. 56 - 57). On the other side of the coin, ritual items can become toys - in the time of Henry VIII, some English children were allowed to play with images that had been taken from the newly-dissolved religious houses, and which presumably were originally intended as items of reverence rather than toys.

Another source of confusion arises from the popular conception of witchcraft, wherein images are used as a means of access to a person, whether for beneficial or harmful purposes - mostly recorded as the latter, due to the proceedings of witchcraft trials and the like. Voodoo culture has similar uses for dolls. Between the recreational, the religious and the magical, it can be very difficult to assign a particular surviving miniature with certainty to any one category. However, there remains plenty of evidence from portraiture and written sources to prove that children certainly played with human figures.

Dolls in the medieval period came from various sources. They might be home-made by adults with time on their hands, fashioned by the children themselves, or bought from wandering peddlers or merchants at fairs - even ordered specially from the most prestigious makers. Some of these last appear to have been given to children once their usefulness as fashion models was past. Naturally, the types and magnificence of the toys varied with the status of the recipient. Many of the dolls sold in England came from abroad, chiefly from Germany and Holland, although very fancy dolls were sold in the Palais du Justice, alongside other expensive luxuries. However, the industry was slow to develop into a guild, hampered partly by its own rules - toys had to be finished by the appropriate masters, and thus could not be made all in one workshop, for instance. There was also the hindrance that toymaking was for a long time considered an addition to a 'real' trade, and to a great extent left to the local craftsmen in their spare time, rather than quickly becoming an industry of its own, as was the case in many other fields. However, dolls among other toys appear to have been traded on a small but constant - and gradually increasing - level throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Dockenmacher ('doll-makers') are recorded in Nuremberg from 1413 (Fraser, p. 66), and their very existence indicates the rising importance of the toy trade on both the local and the international scene.

Written sources for the existence of dolls, and to some extent of their type and manufacture, are fairly plentiful, from legal records, to poetry describing the age of innocence, and sermons on the immature behaviour of the socialites of the day. Luther spoke scornfully of women as pretty Tocke (Fraser, p. 67), while an English source of 1413 compared idle knights and squires to "legges of clowtes, as children maken popetis for to pleyen with while they ben yonge", and not long afterwards, in the Scottish text Ratis Raving, there is a description of children making "a cumly lady of a clout" (Orme, pp. 51 - 52). On a less literary note, records of St Bartholomew's Fair, established in 1133, mention stalls containing sweets and dolls. A book of customs rates for 1550 quotes a set rate for the importation of "babies and puppets for children" and "babies' heads of earth". None of these earthenware heads has survived, although presumably they were common enough to require a standard import duty (King, p. 56). Likewise, the trade was prevalent enough to allow William Turner to write in his Herbal (1562) of the "little puppets and mammettes which come to be sold in England in boxes" (Orme, p. 52). In the same year, a girl or woman at Elizabeth's court was given a "baby of pewter". On the Continent, Schultz has collected Middle High German sources which mention dolls as a specifically childish plaything in the early thirteenth century (Schultz, p. 51). A fifteenth-century observer in Paris described the dolls for sale in the markets there as "charming and attractively dressed" (Fraser, p. 67). Written records certainly imply that dolls were a standard, if only minor, item of trade and a common possession of the young.

Most pictorial sources are generally later, but one drawing survives from around 1200, which shows two youths playing with a pair of foot soldiers. The warriors appear to be on strings, enabling them to be pulled back and forth in semblance of battle. Boys are often shown in illustrations playing with such warrior dolls, and various jousting figures survive which show the perfection of articulated armour and fine horse-trappings which could be achieved in a boy's plaything. In portraiture of the sixteenth century, noble girls are often pictured holding exquisitely dressed dolls, possibly bought new for the sitting as they seem fresh from the box and neither grubby nor worn down with use. These dolls are likely to be accurately painted rather than idealised, as the sitters themselves often were, so it must be assumed that such dolls were indeed artistically finished, beautifully attired and painted with the most delicate of features. In contrast, the seventeenth-century painting of a peasant family, by Adriaen van Ostade, offers proof that children of more humble origins also played with dolls (Fraser, p. 88).

Archaeological evidence is more widely available than might at first be thought. Naturally, more survives the closer we get to modern times, and the material of which dolls were made doubtless influences our picture of their history. From Viking settlements in the far north a few dolls have been separated from the multitude of figures identified by the experts as idols and funerary figures. Some heads and limbs have been found, which may once have had cloth bodies, although it is uncertain whether these were designed as toys or votive offerings (Levick and Beadle). Although no surviving pieces have thus far been uncovered, King states that wealthy Anglo-Saxon children in England may have entertained themselves with carved alabaster dolls, a substance which had been used for doll-making since the Roman occupation, while poorer children of this age would have owned wooden or cloth dolls (King, p. 40). A rag doll is in fact mentioned as early as the ninth century, in the Indiculus Superstitionum. The eleventh-thirteenth centuries give us a few very simple wooden figures, carved from flat pieces of wood so that they appear two-dimensional. They tend to have facial features, and sometimes clothing, incised into the wood (Kolchin, p. 201). Kolchin only identifies five dolls over the whole period of the excavation, in comparison to 400 spinning-tops. Perhaps the majority of dolls were made of rag or other more perishable (possibly edible) substances.

Wooden dolls throughout the medieval period were often carved from a single block, as these Russian ones are, but were also made jointed from fairly early times. The Hortus Sanitatis of 1491 shows Nuremberg doll-makers at work on jointed dolls (Fraser, p. 62). Marionettes, once too worn to be used in plays, would likely have ended up as children's toys. However, 'stump' dolls were still common playthings in the sixteenth century. A surviving example held by the London Museum dates from around 1600, is shaped like a skittle (with a more detailed torso section), wears a small ruff and has incised grooves to indicate the folds of the skirt (King, p. 55). Perhaps the dressing of wooden pegs to make dolls derives also from the stump doll. Traditional wooden pegs, strikingly human-shaped, were known from at least the sixteenth century, as a surviving example found in London shows (Egan, p. 256), so it is quite possible that they were used as dolls as early as this.

French and German dolls which survive from the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries are mostly made of white pipe-clay, formed in moulds. Some have a depression in the chest, which it is postulated may be meant to hold a coin and thus indicates that the doll may have been a gift, perhaps a christening present. Figures of people on horseback are common, whether knights or ladies, reflecting the pastimes of the wealthy of the period. (After all, who wants to play with a pauper 'Barbie' doll?) Chivalric images of this type are found in England from the fourteenth century, usually cast in lead-tin alloy - the English seem to have favoured metal where continental custom tended rather to use ceramic for otherwise similar products. Silver was also a favoured medium for the toys of the rich throughout Europe, although the silver figures seem to have been very miniature and perhaps more intended for looking at than for playing with.

The sixteenth century offers various cast basemetal dolls, hollow at the rear and dressed in current fashions. They tend to have arms held at hip level, and hands formed into loops, possibly so they could be dandled on strings like puppets. These dolls are quite small, ranging from 5 cm to 7.5 cm tall, made of a lead/tin alloy like most of the English survivals (Orme, p. 54). To date these have been found only in London, although there is some suggestion, based on the Southern German style of some of the garments, that these dolls may first have been imported to England and later copied - like many a good idea! - by local manufacturers. Less well-formed metal figures of women with their hands on their hips have been found mostly in rural areas of England. They are flat rather than moulded, and simplistically decorated (making them difficult to date precisely), but overall very similar in style to the more sophisticated London dolls. These may be a cheaper version of the loop-handed figures, intended perhaps for peasant children (Egan). Cast metal knights-on-horseback are also found from the 14th to the 16th centuries, with clay equivalents from across the Channel, and wooden versions throughout Europe.

Aside from these durable creatures of wood, clay and metal, many dolls must have been manufactured of cloth. Unfortunately, no 'rag-dolls' of earlier medieval times have survived, although a doll dating from the Roman period in Egypt is pictured in Fraser (Fraser, p. 50), which may give some hint as to the construction of early medieval cloth dolls, as does this mention, from 1583, of 'mawmets' being made "of rags and cloutes compact together" (Orme, p. 52). The heavy, stiff dolls of clay and wood may perhaps have been more decorative and therefore less handled than the more cuddly fabric versions, although some of the magnificent dolls which are extant from the very end of the sixteenth century are made of cloth. One of these, now in the Stockholm Royal Armoury Collection, dates from 1590 and puts the notion of a 'rag' doll into new perspective - she is built upon a wire armature swathed in unspun silk threads, with real hair and embroidered features. This magnificent doll is dressed in perfect replica of the fashion of the period, sewn from the finest of silks and velvets and decorated with pearls (King, p. 54). From these heights of childhood glory, the leap to lowly peasant dolls of real rags seems very great.

Wax, wood and composition dolls were all offered for sale at the fairs of Venice and Florence at the end of the fourteenth century, and the wax and composition versions seem to have become more widely available from this time (King, p. 46). None of these early composition dolls have survived, but they were probably formed of waste substances. Sixteenth-century composition dolls were made of paper paste pressed into moulds, according to Philibert Delorme in his Traite d'Architecture of 1567, but materials such as bran, vegetable matter, sawdust and even arsenic (to discourage rats from eating the mixture) were added. The Nuremberg dollmakers were particularly well-placed to produce composition figures as they had the waste-products of the paper-mills to draw upon (King, p. 56). Christoff Weigel's Standebuch (1698) shows a workshop where pulp heads are being made, either for dolls or perhaps as masks for use in festivals (Fritsch and Bachmann, p. 23).

Waxen images were used extensively for ritual purposes, both for the approved rites of churchmen and the foul play of witches, contributing to the confusion regarding which figures are truly dolls and which belong to some other category. The wax dolls marketed in the fourteenth century were most likely made of solid wax, carved and pressed into shape, just as cheap seventeenth-century dollhouse figures were made (King, p. 46). The features of these later examples are minimal and it is the costume which gives each doll its interest. Endrei, focusing on northern European information, reports that wax-headed dolls spread from Italy at the end of the fourteenth century, which fits well with other sources, including Orme who mentions wax images found in Exeter Cathedral where they would have been offered at the shrine (Orme, p. 52).

Edible dolls were commonplace, especially at the large fairs and markets which came into their own in the twelfth century. These dolls were designed to be bought as a child's gift, played with for a short time, and eventually consumed - presumably by rats if not by the child! They were made of bread, of gingerbread, and more esoteric substances such as a mixture of sugar, flour and gum tragacanth. Tragacanth dolls, a few inches tall, are shown being moulded and decorated in a copperplate illustration of 1698 (Fritsch and Bachmann, p. 22). These dolls were painted, decorated with gilt, stamped with moulded designs, and formed into the semblance of saints in the hope of conferring some of that sanctity upon the eater. Both male and female dolls were made, and King postulates that the simplest wooden Docken were probably cut in similar shapes to the stamped-out gingerbread dolls they both emulated and made more permanent. Bread dolls were made in the appropriate form on Saints' Days, and gingerbread figures were popular both on the Continent and in England. German cooks made 'spice dolls' in two halves, so that a small gift could be sealed inside the doll before the decorations were added to the outside (King, p. 42).

Fashion dolls, while not intended as playthings, were probably given to children once their time in the sewing-room was past. Some of the gorgeous creatures pictured in sixteenth-century portraits of children may have begun life modelling the latest foreign fashions for the courts of Europe. In particular, the painting, by an unknown artist, of little Arabella Stuart (1577) depicts a doll dressed in the fashions of a decade earlier. As early as 1396, French court records show that a tailor was paid to make up a doll's wardrobe, and fashion dolls are mentioned in the proceedings of a witchcraft trial in 1615, where the "pictures, puppets and magic spells were no other but several French babies, some naked, some clothed, which were usual then, and so are nowadays, to teach us the fashions for dress of ladies' tiring and apparel" (Ashelford, p. 75). It is probable that some at least of these 'dolls' were very large - such great sums of money were spent upon their apparel that the clothes may well have been life-size and meant to be worn (King, p. 47). In contrast, many surviving dolls are only an inch or two tall, while one of the largest is a 30-inch Spanish doll pictured by Grber (Grber, pl. 31).

Towards the close of the Renaissance, doll's accessories become more prevalent. Occasional documentation can be found for babies with cradles, special feeding dishes or removable clothing (King, p. 58).

Dolls of many substances and every grade of beauty were made and used during the medieval period. Wood and cloth dolls seem to have been the most enduringly popular versions, although composition, wax and ceramic were all common materials. Dolls were traded extensively across Europe, but also frequently fashioned by doting relatives or by the children themselves. Despite the confusion afforded by the use of human images also for ritual purposes, it is clear that rich and poor children alike both owned and enjoyed dolls for their simple amusement.

Bibliography

Ashelford, Jane, Dress in the Age of Elizabeth I, London, Batsford LTD, 1988.

Egan, Geoff, The Medieval Household: Daily Living c. 1150 - 1450, Medieval Finds From Excavations in London Series, No. 6, Museum of London, 1998.
Pages 281 - 283 have some information on toys and a few diagrams. The cover shows a mechanical bird. A wooden peg appears as item 787 (p. 256).

Egan, Geoff, Playthings From the Past: Lead Alloy Miniature Artefacts c. 1300 - 1800, Exhibition Catalogue, London, Jonathan Horne Publications, 1996.
Colour photographs of some items, extensive bibliography. Divided by type of object, so requires some searching to find the medieval things. Plenty of information.

Endrei, Walter and Zolnay, Laszlo, Fun and Games in Old Europe, Karoly Ravasz (trans.), Budapest, Corvina, 1986.
Somewhat odd at times, presumably a result of translation, but good information and various illustrations of objects and pictures dealing with the medieval period. Much information about the seventeenth century and later, also. Useful for northern European toys and games particularly.

Fraser, Antonia, A History of Toys, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1966.
An excellent source, with illustrations and photographs of a wide variety of toys. Mentions the earliest doll's house, although without any precise description.

Fritsch, K. E. and Bachmann, M., An Illustrated History of Toys, London, Abbey Library, 1966.
Mostly 18th and 19th century information, however it contains some useful illustrations.

Grber, Karl, Children's Toys of Bygone Days: A History of Playthings of all Peoples From Prehistoric Times to the Nineteenth Century, (trans. P. Hereford) London, Batsford, 1928.
This is the source for a good proportion of Fraser's information. The book contains a very good collection of photographs of extant toys not seen elsewhere.

King, C. E., A Collector's History of Dolls, New York, Bonanza Books, 1977.
An excellent study of historical dolls, with a decent amount of information on medieval types.

Kolchin, B. A., Wooden Artefacts from Medieval Novgorod, (trans.) BAR International Series 495, Parts 1 (text) and 2 (illustrations), 1989.
Shows a good selection of wooden toys in photographs and drawings, with some information.

Levick, Ben and Beadle, Mark, Games of the Viking and Anglo-Saxon Age, January 1992, Regia Anglorum Webpage. ( http://www.regia.org/games.htm, also/pastimes.htm)
Not much on toys as opposed to dice and board games, and no references given, although they make some interesting statements about skittles. There is also mention of felt animals apparently found at various Viking sites in northern Europe. I have found information offered by this group to be very reliable and well-researched in the past.

Tuttle, Kinberly (Margritte of Ravenscroft), Toys in the Middle Ages, published on Stefan's Florilegium, 1999. Available on the Internet at http://www.florilegium.org/.
A worthwhile overview on the subject. No illustrations.

Orme, Nicholas, 'The Culture of Children in Medieval England', in Past and Present No. 148, August 1995, pp. 48 - 88.
Very scholarly work centred on medieval childhood from 1300 - 1550. Information on English toys, mainly from written sources, plus more on childish occupations such as schoolbooks and exploring.

Schultz, James, The Knowledge of Childhood in the German Middle Ages, 1100 - 1350, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995.
Middle High German literary sources, 13th-century mentions of dolls, marbles, rings, drawing straws.
Copyright India Ollerenshaw 2002. Free use for non-profit. This article was published in issue 16 of Cockatrice.
Joan & Crispin's Homepage: http://aelflaed.homemail.com.au/

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Aelflaed of the Weald (India Ollerenshaw), 2002 There is no doubt that medieval children played with dolls. I offer here the details of my research into these timeless playthings, examining to the best of my ability the many types of dolls which were bought and sold, given and cherished by our forbears.

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Table of Contents

This article was most recently revised and updated by

quoits, game in which players toss rings at a stake, called the hob. A ring that encircles the hob scores two points for the thrower; a ring closer to the hob than an opponent's scores one. The rings are usually made of iron and weigh about three pounds, but rope or rubber rings are also used. It has been said that the game was played in Roman-occupied Britain (1st-5th century), or it may have been developed in medieval Britain, perhaps when peasants heated and bent horseshoes into rings and tossed them at iron pegs driven into the ground. Later, in the United States and Canada, horseshoe pitching became the more popular game.

Amy Tikkanen.

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quoits, game in which players toss rings at a stake, called the hob. A ring that encircles the hob scores two points for the thrower; a ring closer to the hob than an opponent's scores one. The rings are usually made of iron and weigh about three pounds, but rope or rubber rings are also used.

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The predecessor of chess can be dated back to the 6th century AD in India.

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Inducted Year: 2012
Dominoes, cousins of playing cards, originated in China in the 1300s and represent one of the oldest tools for game play. From professional domino game competition to setting them up and then knocking them over, dominoes allow for a variety of games, as well as tests of skill and patience. The markings on dominoes, known as pips, originally represented the results of throwing two six-sided dice. The European dominoes we recognize today differed from the Chinese versions by incorporating seven extra dominoes-six representing the results from throwing a single die with the other half of the tile left blank, and one representing the blank-blank (0-0) combination.

Most domino games involve emptying one's hand while blocking opponents' play. Scoring games, such as bergen and muggins, determine points by counting the pips (spots on a tile) in the losing players' hands. Other play formats include blocking games such as matador, chicken foot, and Mexican train. Some domino games duplicate card games-without the possibility of the wind blowing the cards away. And every sort of domino game helps teach kids number recognition and math skills.

Who first set up a row of domino tiles and then gave one a push? We don't know, but the practice, known as "toppling," probably dates from the tiles' early years. The Netherlands hosted an annual domino toppling exhibition called Domino Day from 1986 to 2009, culminating in an event where a team toppled 4.5 million dominoes. Do-it-yourself topplers are nearly as skilled, too, as is proven by the many amazing amateur toppling videos on the Internet.

Factoyd: Plastic domino sets reproduce the look of early dominoes made of ivory and ebony. They take their name from the French word domino, meaning a priest's white and black winter hood >

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Dominoes - The Strong National Museum of Play

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Inducted Year: 2012 Dominoes, cousins of playing cards, originated in China in the 1300s and represent one of the oldest tools for game play. From professional domino game competition to setting them up and then knocking them over, dominoes allow for a variety of games, as well as tests of skill and patience.

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Inducted Year: 2005
The jack-in-the-box offers continual delight. Known since the 16th century, and appearing as a Punch box (minus sidekick Judy), an admiral on a stick, and a Johnny jump-up, sometimes the jack figure was more horrible than humorous. Later, cuter examples show a growing kindliness toward children. Children still ask parents to crank the toy over and over without tiring of the joke. "Do it again!" They get help to reload it, deferring the jolt and the gratification. "Wait for it," and crank it yet again, to hum along, to learn a peek-a-boo skill, and to appreciate cause-and-effect every time the jester pops up. Manufacturers first produced the box in wood, then printed cardboard, and most familiarly in lithographed tin in the 20th century. Jack-in-the-boxes initially featured the familiar clown in papier-mâché, then bisque, then celluloid, then plastic. The toy also now appears with a variety of pleasant revelations: Winnie the Pooh sometimes shoots up, so do the Cat in the Hat, the Three Little Pigs, The Big Bad Wolf, assorted kitties and doggies, and suitably, Curious George.

Factoyd: The Jack-in-the-Box evolved from squeak toys that first appeared in Europe in the 1500s

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Jack-in-the-Box - The Strong National Museum of Play

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Inducted Year: 2005 The jack-in-the-box offers continual delight. Known since the 16th century, and appearing as a Punch box (minus sidekick Judy), an admiral on a stick, and a Johnny jump-up, sometimes the jack figure was more horrible than humorous. Later, cuter examples show a growing kindliness toward children.

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The Cup and Ball was very popular in France during the 16th Century. It was known as a 'Bilboquet'. It developed into a craze during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1 when it became known as a Cup and Ball. Apparently even the Queen herself enjoyed playing with this toy as did all her courtiers! The Cup and Ball was played all over the world. Eskimos played Cup and Ball in the middle of the freezing snow because they saw it as a rite to hasten the return of the sun.

Suggested activity: Make a cup and ball

You will need:

An empty yoghurt pot

A piece of string (about 70cms long)

A piece of silver foil

Tie a knot at the end of the string. Make a small hole in the bottom of the yoghurt pot. Thread the string through the hole from the inside of the yoghurt pot. Place the other end of the string onto the silver foil. Scrunch the foil into a ball. Now swing the silver ball and catch it in the cup!!

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The Cup and Ball was very popular in France during the 16th Century. It was known as a 'Bilboquet'. It developed into a craze during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1 when it became known as a Cup and Ball. Apparently even the Queen herself enjoyed playing with this toy as did all her courtiers!

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Inducted Year: 2003
For centuries, parents understanding the connection between play and development have made alphabet blocks standard equipment of the well-stocked toy box. Alphabet blocks appeared as early as 1693, when philosopher John Locke pointed out that "dice and play-things, with the letters on them to teach children the alphabet by playing" would make learning to read a more enjoyable experience. A century and a quarter later, Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel, a museum curator who pioneered kindergarten, introduced geometric solids carved from wood. Known as Froebel's "gifts," they soon led to alphabet blocks. In 19th century America, these toys found their way into most schools, marketed as tools to help children recognize shapes of letters before learning to read. Nowadays, virtually all American preschools and many home playrooms store alphabet blocks. Traditionally, homemade blocks prevailed. Currently, Uncle Goose Toys and Old Fashioned Blocks produce and manufacture this vividly colored toy. Parents may understand that these blocks carry educational value, but children like them because their colors delight the eye, their pictures provoke stories, and their numbers, patterns, and symbols look nice piled up.

Factoyd: Architect Frank Lloyd Wright credited his interest in buildings to the alphabet blocks his mother gave him as a child

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Alphabet Blocks - The Strong National Museum of Play

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Inducted Year: 2003 For centuries, parents understanding the connection between play and development have made alphabet blocks standard equipment of the well-stocked toy box. Alphabet blocks appeared as early as 1693, when philosopher John Locke pointed out that "dice and play-things, with the letters on them to teach children the alphabet by playing" would make learning to read a more enjoyable experience.

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I have been an avid puzzler all my life, but because of Covid, I have rekindled my love of doing puzzles. 1000 pieces are my jam, and I can usually finish one in the course of 2 to 3 evenings or a marathon weekend. You can find me on any given evening listening to an audiobook (downloaded from Overdrive or hoopla) and saying just one more piece...ooh one more...okay, last one...and then it's 3 a.m., and I'm yelling jigsaw! Seemingly lots of people did the same, as puzzle sales have reached levels that haven't been seen since the Great Depression. As one company owner put it, "The puzzle people are still puzzle people, only now they have more time to do puzzles. And people who had not done puzzles since they were kids...were digging puzzles out of their grandma's attic to have something to do and were liking it."

This got me thinking about the history of jigsaw puzzles; when were they invented, what is a jigsaw, and any other nerdy things I could research. Here are some fun facts I discovered.

John Spilsbury, a London cartographer, and engraver is believed to have produced the first "jigsaw" puzzle around 1760. It was a map glued to a flat piece of wood and then cut into pieces following the lines of the countries. These early puzzles were known as "dissections," and they were beneficial for teaching geography. But they were not just for children; they were a trendy pastime among the (wealthy) adults as well. Made of wood and handcrafted, only the very wealthy could afford them.

And did old John use a jigsaw to cut apart his "dissection"? No, he did not because the jigsaw had yet to be invented! He likely used a marquetry saw, which is still a popular hand saw utilizing a blade held between its curved frame.

The jigsaw was invented in 1855. It was a vertical reciprocating saw with a treadle to operate the blade. It was also known as a fretsaw or scrollsaw. Jigsaw came from the nickname jig, which was used because of the saw's "rapid up-and-down motion." Picture an old-fashioned sewing machine with a blade instead of a needle. The name "jigsaw puzzle" didn't appear until 1906, and the modern portable jigsaw wasn't introduced until 1947.

Because of its close association with a sewing machine, those early saws were mostly operated by women, and "bonus," they could pay women less for their work.

Many puzzle companies claim to have the biggest (or largest) jigsaw puzzle: Grafika boasts that "Travel around Art" with 54,000 pieces is the biggest. Still, Ravensburger contends that with over 40,000 pieces, "Memorable Disney Moments" is confirmed by Guinness World Records as the largest commercially made puzzle globally, both in the number of pieces and overall size. Kodak staked its claim for the world's largest jigsaw puzzle with the aptly named "World's Largest Jigsaw Puzzle." It has 51,300-pieces and is 28.5 feet by 6.25 feet. There's also a Guinness World Records giant, which claims to have the most pieces, 551,232, and was completed with an overall measurement of 48 ft 8.64 in x 76 ft 1.38 in by 1,600 students of the University of Economics of Ho Chi Minh City in September of 2011. The puzzle depicted a lotus flower with six petals. (I will stick with my 1000 pieces).

Fun fact: 1000 piece puzzles don't contain exactly 1000 pieces; most are 1008 or 1026 to make the correct shape.

During the Great Depression of 1933, manufacturers produced 10 million puzzles a week, and people could rent puzzles for a nickel a night. This was before modern jigsaws and the current die-cut method. Today's Covid era sales have beaten those records with brands like Ravensburger, one of the top puzzle companies, selling over 28 million puzzles worldwide in 2020 alone. That translates to sales in the billions of dollars for puzzle companies worldwide. That is a lot of puzzles!

The die-cut machine is like a giant metal cookie cutter that cuts out the pieces using about 1,100 tons of pressure. The blades get dull very quickly and can be sharpened once or maybe twice, but then are discarded. I hope they recycle those.

Each shape has a name, but there really isn't a standard naming convention. There are basically tabs or interjambs, and their corresponding indentations are called blanks, so you could say 4 tabs, or 2 tabs, and 2 opposing blanks. I have made up my own names, (that I whisper to myself) as I hunt around, such as door knobby thingy, or half-inny-half-outy, and two-uppy-one inny.

January 29 is National Puzzle Day, and National Jigsaw Day is November 3.

Shameless plug: Our very own Library Store sells a wide range of puzzles; come by Central Library or shop through their website.

Books About Jigsaw Puzzles

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I have been an avid puzzler all my life, but because of Covid, I have rekindled my love of doing puzzles. 1000 pieces are my jam, and I can usually finish one in the course of 2 to 3 evenings or a marathon weekend.

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Inducted Year: 2008
Crying, cooing, sleeping, eating, drinking, and wetting. What aspiring mom (or dad) doesn't want a lifelike baby doll with all those features? But before the first baby doll appeared in the mid-1800s, girls were limited to companion-style dolls or elaborate fashion dolls-neither suited to cradling or cuddling. Unlike companion dolls, with which children play tea party and dress-up, baby dolls have a specific function in imaginative play. Children primarily treat baby dolls as they would infants-they are toted around in strollers, fed from high chairs, and rocked to sleep like newborns.

Creating a doll that looks like a baby is no easy task. Since the mid-19th century, doll manufacturers have worked to produce dolls that look and act like infants. In 1922, doll designers reached a new level of realism with the Bye-Lo baby, a doll crafted to look like a three-day-old newborn. The 1930s saw the proliferation of drink and wet dolls such as Betsy-Wetsy and the Dy-Dee doll. Nowadays, baby dolls come with an array of functions that allow them to eat, crawl, play peek-a-boo, and even respond to a child's voice. Every baby doll-from the simplest version to the most technologically advanced-serves a special function in cultivating nurturing and parental roles in children, while promoting open-ended active play.

Factoyd: Baby dolls first appeared in the early 1900s and reflected a new kind of doll play that mimicked the care and nurturing of infants

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Baby Doll - The Strong National Museum of Play

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Inducted Year: 2008 Crying, cooing, sleeping, eating, drinking, and wetting. What aspiring mom (or dad) doesn't want a lifelike baby doll with all those features? But before the first baby doll appeared in the mid-1800s, girls were limited to companion-style dolls or elaborate fashion dolls-neither suited to cradling or cuddling.

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Inducted Year: 1998
In 1902, on an unsuccessful hunting trip, President Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot a bear that expedition trackers had caught and tied to a tree. The incident struck a chord with the American sense of fair play. Political cartoonist Clifford Berryman immortalized the incident in "Drawing the Line in Mississippi." Tugging at American heartstrings, Berryman drew the old, injured female bear as a helpless cub. With Roosevelt's permission, Morris Mictom, a Russian immigrant and Brooklyn toy-shop owner, sewed a cuddly stuffed toy and dubbed it Teddy's Bear. With its big head and ears, and eyes as appealing as the future Mickey Mouse, the bear became a hit. German toy manufacturer Richard Steiff created a stuffed bear, too, and began mass-producing copies in 1903. The stuffed bears became a hit with adults and children. Visitors who flocked to the boardwalks in New Jersey's seaside resorts took home teddy bears as prizes and souvenirs. Women's magazines featured ads for bear accessories and offered up-to-date patterns for sewing bear clothes. Books, songs, and even a 1907 feature film marked the rising popularity of teddy bears. This fascination has persisted ever since, making Teddy Bears the most popular plush toy in history.

Factoyd: The Teddy Bear's name came from an incident involving Theodore Roosevelt and his refusal to shoot a mother bear during a hunt

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Teddy Bear - The Strong National Museum of Play

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Inducted Year: 1998 In 1902, on an unsuccessful hunting trip, President Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot a bear that expedition trackers had caught and tied to a tree. The incident struck a chord with the American sense of fair play. Political cartoonist Clifford Berryman immortalized the incident in "Drawing the Line in Mississippi."

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Barbie was founded in 1959 by Ruth Handler (above, left), a mother and visionary entrepreneur, whose inspiration for Barbie came from watching her daughter project her dreams and aspirations onto paper dolls.

Recognizing a gap in the market, which only offered baby dolls for girls to imagine themselves as caregivers, Ruth invented the fashion doll category with a three-dimensional doll that girls could use to imagine their future selves.

Ruth's philosophy behind Barbie was that through the doll a little girl could be anything she wanted to be and that she has choices.

Over the brand's 60 years, Barbie has empowered girls to imagine themselves in aspirational roles from a princess to president.

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Barbie was founded in 1959 by Ruth Handler (above, left), a mother and visionary entrepreneur, whose inspiration for Barbie came from watching her daughter project her dreams and aspirations onto paper dolls.

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Die Nerf Rival Produktlinie wird ausschließlich in bestimmten Ländern vertrieben und ist aufgrund lokaler rechtlicher Rahmenbedingungen in Deutschland nicht erhältlich. Wir raten dringend davon ab, Nerf Rival in anderen Ländern zu erwerben und nach Deutschland einzuführen.

Die Nerf Ultra Produktlinie wird aufgrund lokaler rechtlicher Rahmenbedingungen in Deutschland erst ab September 2020 erhältlich sein. Bis dahin raten wir dringend davon ab, Nerf Ultra in anderen Ländern zu erwerben und nach Deutschland einzuführen.

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Die Nerf Rival Produktlinie wird ausschließlich in bestimmten Ländern vertrieben und ist aufgrund lokaler rechtlicher Rahmenbedingungen in Deutschland nicht erhältlich. Wir raten dringend davon ab, Nerf Rival in anderen Ländern zu erwerben und nach Deutschland einzuführen. Die Nerf Ultra Produktlinie wird aufgrund lokaler rechtlicher Rahmenbedingungen in Deutschland erst ab September 2020 erhältlich sein.

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Dani Bunda vividly remembers when she and her older sister bought their Tamagotchis at the mall. "We sat in the dressing room and pretended we were alien catchers-and we'd just found these eggs," Bunda, now 27, recalls.

In the weeks that followed, Bunda says her mother became the "ultimate Tamagotchi grandparent," tending the needy, beeping virtual pets during tennis lessons and school days. With proper feeding, attention and discipline, Tamagotchis grow through unique life cycles, developing personalities that reflect the care they receive.

The palm-sized, egg-shaped toys, with black and white pixelated screens and a handy keychain, were a self-contained universe-one that included happy moments and melancholy ones alike."I remember, very clearly, standing in the kitchen when my sister found out that her Tamagotchi died, and just how traumatic that was for her," Bunda says. Players quickly learned to modify their games, extending their virtual pets' lives by removing the toy's batteries or using pencil graphite to trigger a debugging signal.

When Tamagotchi-which turned 25 this November-first launched in the U.S., Wired dismissed the toy, claiming it "borrowed all the gimmickry of 1970s' Pet Rock kitsch and gave it a digital facelift." Yet within a year of its release, the toy became a billion-dollar global sensation. At the peak of the Tamagotchi craze, stores sold out in hours and scammers preyed on shoppers' desperation, charging marked-up prices for coupons that could never be redeemed.

Today, many of the '90s kids who were once scolded for surreptitiously tending their Tamagotchi during class are rediscovering their nostalgia for the toy's unique gameplay and endlessly collectible variations. To date, Japanese toy company Bandai has released more than 60 additional Tamagotchi toys, games and apps, including collaborations with franchises such as Pac-Man, Pokémon and Godzilla. In 2017, the original Tamagotchi was relaunched on the 20th anniversary of its original U.S. release. And 2021 has seen multiple new Tamagotchi drops, including a Tamagotchi smartwatch that launched in Japan in June and the Tamagotchi Pix, a camera-equipped handheld device with a color screen that arrived in North America in July.

Most toys experience ebbs and flows of popularity, and Tamagotchi is no different. But online, a dedicated fan base has remained steadily devoted. Bunda is an active member of Tamagotchi Facebook groups, where she helps fellow fans price their collections and spot scams. Sometimes, players start "group hatches," meaning they start a new Tamagotchi at the same time and share updates of their progress. "It's so fun," she says. She also regularly posts videos to her YouTube channel, where she helps thousands of subscribers translate Japanese Tamagotchis.

The Birth of Tamagotchi

The story of Tamagotchi began in the Toshima City ward of northwest Tokyo, when toy executive Akihiro Yokoi was struck by inspiration. As Yokoi explained to the New York Times, the jolt came from an advertisement in which a boy wasn't allowed to bring his pet turtle on vacation. An owner of "a dog, three cats, two parrots, and several beetles and other insects," Yokoi identified with the boy's longing. If it wasn't always possible to take living pets along, he reasoned, why not bring a virtual one?

The origin story has an apocryphal quality. Was the advertisement selling turtles? Vacations? Did it exist at all? "No matter where I look I cannot find what the TV commercial was about or even if there was such [a] commercial in the first place," one Redditor complained just a year ago.

Regardless, Yokoi was president of Wiz Co., Ltd., a creative firm where 42 employees, most in their early 20s, designed and pitched toy concepts to larger companies. Handheld games had been around since Mattel launched single-game consoles in 1977-but early portable consoles were too expensive for most players, says cultural historian Carly Kocurek, who specializes in new media technologies and video gaming at the Illinois Institute of Technology. "It had gotten a lot more affordable to make inexpensive, small electronics," Kocurek explains.

In 1977, the Atari 2600 was a major purchase at $199.99-the equivalent of $917.21 today. By 1989, Nintendo's Game Boy retailed for $89.99, or $201.71 when adjusted for inflation. A major element of Tamagotchis' popularity was the fact that at $15 to $17 apiece practically anyone could afford to purchase one. Coupled with the success of the single-player Petz video games in 1995, Tamagotchi's simple technology-a black and white LCD screen, a tiny battery and a few rudimentary buttons-was designed for mass production, laying the groundwork for what would become a golden age of virtual pets.

Yokoi contacted Aki Maita, who worked on marketing at Bandai, next. Though it was well-established as Japan's leading toy company, Bandai had struggled to gain a foothold in American toy stores until 1993, when its Mighty Morphin Power Rangers became a surprise hit at the North American International Toy Fair, a major trade show held annually in New York since 1903. Working with Maita and Wiz Co.'s staff, Yokoi initially envisioned the toy as a wearable wristwatch and dubbed it Tamagotchi-a mash-up of tamago (egg) and uotchi (watch)-but later switched to a keychain design. During one memorable meeting, a designer quickly sketched a blobby character, and it stuck.

Then came the gameplay. Tamagotchi was programmed to evolve in response to the player's caretaking decisions. The device would beep at real-time intervals, demanding that the player feed, clean up and even discipline the pet. Proper parenting would result in a well-mannered adult Tamagotchi, while inattention would result in a delinquent. And just like a real animal, if ignored, a Tamagotchi would die-triggering a tombstone in Japanese versions of the game, or a euphemism about returning to its home planet for Americans.

Within weeks of Tamagotchi's U.S. release-enough time for players to experience the game's love and loss-some parents became unsettled by their children's hysterical tears or sudden depression upon their virtual pets' deaths. "The toy creates a real sense of loss and a mourning process," Andrew Cohen, a psychologist at the Dalton School in Manhattan, told the New York Times in 1997. "Kids want to nurture and take care of pets-it gives them a feeling of empowerment and self-importance-but here the consequences are too high. It's out of control."

But to Kocurek, there's no reason that play can't include elements of grief, loss or other complicated emotions. "Children experience a huge range of human emotions," Kocurek points out. "I think sometimes we forget that they're people, and they're not just simple and happy all the time. They actually have complex emotional lives, just like everyone else."

Maita championed the toy to Bandai's skeptical salespeople. "Their reaction was dull, like, 'What's so fun about this?'" Maita later told the New York Times. "In fact, we had difficulty marketing it to toy shops. Not all of them placed orders with us." But in focus groups, Japanese teen girls-"the marketing pulse of the nation"-loved it.

The girls' taste proved right. In less than six months, Bandai sold 5 million Tamagotchi in Japan. The toy sold out so quickly that Japanese shoppers began camping outside toy stores or shelling out hundreds on the resale market. In March 1997, Bandai announced that it would gift a Tamagotchi to anyone who owned 1,000 shares of its stock-and the price leapt by 60 yen the next day.

In the U.S., Tamagotchi was an instant hit. On the first day of sales, May 1, 1997, San Francisco's F.A.O. Schwartz sold its entire stock of 3,000 by 3:00 p.m. By noon the next day, the department store's New York flagship had sold its initial 10,000 Tamagotchi, too. Tamagotchi quickly became a hot toy around the globe, with sales increasing to more than 70 million by September across Japan, China, Europe and the United States. Yokoi and Maita were awarded the satirical Ig Nobel Prize that year, "for turning millions of work hours into lost time taking care of virtual pets."

Tamagotchi's universal popularity occurred in spite of the way the toy was marketed to consumers. "When Tamagotchi was first released, it was marketed to girls-reallyaggressively," Kocurek says. "There's all kinds of assumptions about who wants to do caretaking play that aren't necessarily born out." Though children of all genders clamored for Tamagotchi, these same stereotypes persist today. Kocurek cites Diner Dash as a classic example of a game that, like Tamagotchi, focused on intense time and resource management-and was primarily marketed to women.

Beyond its marketing, Tamagotchi was also relentlessly present, building a fear of missing out directly into the gameplay. "Tamagotchi is premised on you being available in an ongoing way-which is really different from a lot of other types of games and play," Kocurek says.

Today, Collectors Keep Tamagotchi Alive

The average lifespan of a well-cared for Tamagotchi is about 12 days-and like the virtual pet itself, the Tamagotchi was a relatively short-lived fad among American shoppers. Furbies, the fuzzy bird-like robot toys supposedly capable of learning human speech, overtook Tamagotchi by the following holiday season.

Though the toy industry continued to churn out other trends, some players never stopped paying attention to Tamagotchi. To outsiders, caring for a virtual pet might seem like a lonely endeavor-but for collectors and fans, it's easy to find community online. On TamaTalk, for example, approximately 96,000 members gather online to trade gameplay tips and commemorate past pets through obituaries.

Jordan, who streams on Twitch under the handle Rozoken and asked to go by first name only, has been following Tamagotchi's new releases since 1997. "I started collecting a lot more as an adult, because I got involved in the community and I would learn about all of the special Japanese releases," he says. Today, his collection has grown to include more than 200 Tamagotchis, including rarities that were never released in the U.S. He's even tracked down Japanese wall-mounted store models that once dispensed exclusive digital downloads. "Usually, those wouldn't end up in the public's hands, but quite a few times, they do," he says. "Those are really cool collection pieces."

On eBay, vintage Tamagotchi prices vary wildly, from $1.50 for an original Tamagotchi to a $5,000 Mobile Kaitsu! Tamagotchi Plus that ships from Tokyo. But Bunda says the barrier to entry is surprisingly low for collectors-especially among collectors in Facebook communities. "Genuine Tamagotchi are usually $20 to maybe upwards of $150, depending on the shell," she says. "Some people might pay more, if it's new in the box."

That may change as Bandai continues to cash in on '90s nostalgia. Bunda has noticed new members joining her Facebook groups in droves, and Jordan says he's seen a spike in interest, too. "It was pretty shocking, actually," he says. He had recently completed a major milestone of his collection-owning one of every specific version of Tamagotchi, in Japanese and English-when "everything at least doubled in price."

The pandemic may be behind some of this, as people seek comfort in nostalgia and find ways to occupy themselves at home. But Bunda and Jordan also point out that Tamagotchi's steady drip of new releases and relaunches renews its popularity. Though vintage Tamagotchis grow scarcer each year, it's still easy to walk into any box store with a toy aisle and discover a brand-new Tamagotchi for around $20. In this way, Tamagotchi has achieved the kind of immortality awarded to toys that transcend their one big moment.

"Life isn't as magical as it was when I was a kid," Bunda says. "But playing Tamagotchi-and buying more Tamagotchi-brings that magic into my life."

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Dani Bunda vividly remembers when she and her older sister bought their Tamagotchis at the mall. "We sat in the dressing room and pretended we were alien catchers-and we'd just found these eggs," Bunda, now 27, recalls. In the weeks that followed, Bunda says her mother became the "ultimate Tamagotchi grandparent," tending the needy, beeping virtual pets during tennis lessons and school days.