This prohibition extended to playing cards. In the early days of the war playing cards were regarded as superfluous and the material to make them became more and more difficult to obtain. Finally, however, it was the personal intervention of Mr Winston Churchill which brought the position to a head when he was visiting the troops in Egypt.

Above: SHAKESPEAREAN PLAYING CARDS, designed by F C Tilney, made by John Waddington Limited c.1925. See more → The characters of the court cards are chosen from Shakespeare's plays and are arranged into the four suits as follows: Since putting these details together, I have discovered that there are, in fact, five different types of index in the wide-size cards produced by De La Rue with GD9 courts between 1920 and 1940, rather than the three given above. On the other hand, the standard-sized cards had only three. Here are the five wide types: Waddingtons became the UK publisher of the US Parker Brothers' Monopoly, while Parker licensed Waddingtons' Cluedo. [2] In 1941, the British Directorate of Military Intelligence section 9 (MI9) had the company create a special edition of Monopoly for World War II prisoners of war held by the Germans. [3] The important thing is to have cards freely forthcoming when called for, and although the soldiers should have priority civilian workers need them too.”In 1932 Norman Victor Watson and John Waddington Limited submitted a patent application for a New Method and Apparatus for the Manufacture of Playing Cards ► Hidden inside these games were maps, compasses, real money and other objects useful for escaping. They were distributed to prisoners by fake charitable organisations. [4] Above: Number 1 playing cards manufactured during war-time rationing with the reference “war-time restrictions” on the box. Image courtesy Ken Lodge. In 1935 Ormond Printing was obtained, which meant that playing card production could be delegated to Eire

David Thornton, Leeds: A Historical Dictionary of People, Places and Events (Huddersfield: Northern Heritage Publications, 2013), s.v. WADDINGTONS. To start with, here are a few guides to De La Rue, Goodall and a few, later Waddington cards with Goodall courts. After 1940 the slimline cards disappeared, but were resurrected again after the war with Goodall courts (see below for the illustration). Top: Q1/2/5 with GD10; bottom: Q2 with GD11, the first smaller-framed courts, Q3 with GD12, De La Rue's second version of the smaller-framed courts, Q5, still in use. Churchill requested that playing card manufacture be maintained at any cost, so as to provide distraction during the endless hours of boredom in the trenches.

Hobbies

Note that the Old Frizzle printed for De La Rue always had By His Majesty's letters patent printed at the foot. This is a reference to William IV's granting the patent in 1831, but it does NOT mean that the cards are necessarily from his reign. The patent was proclaimed on the De La Rue AS throughout the Old Frizzle period until 1862. Reynolds' own AS, designed after 1862, was modelled closely on Old Frizzle, so do watch out for the differences. One obvious one is MANUFACTURED BY above the design rather than DUTY ONE SHILLING as on Old Frizzle. The one illustrated is for REYNOLDS & SONS (1862-1882); REYNOLDS & Co. instead means it dates at the earliest to 1882, when the firm changed its name, shortly before being taken over by Goodall. In 1924 they seem to have introduced a new version of bridge called Buccaneer Bridge with four extra ones (as well as aces). The images are courtesy of Chris Rayner. For a short period in the late 1960s and early 1970s Waddington made cards for gambling casinos. They were oversize, had redrawn Paris pattern courts and are found with and without English indices. The courts are coloured with either blue or green. The finish was not always up to standard and were probably not good to play with. The one below is anonymous, though usually the name was on the AS and the shield of the JC. [Not in Berry.] In 1939, just before the outbreak of war, the firm introduced a series called "Amo(u)rette" (spelt both ways in the archive material), which were narrower than the bridge cards. They had courts without frames that were the only instance of a turned version of Waddington's own court design (W3.2). Beginning in 1994, Christmas-themed jigsaw puzzles were released annually until 2007. The first twelve in the series depicted a scene from a Victorian-era Christmas. The final puzzle depicted a scene from the fairy tale Cinderella. The small number of puzzles, combined with them being limited editions, has made these puzzles highly collectable. [9] Further jigsaws have been produced since 2010 by a new company, using the same brand name. [9] Games [ edit ]