Pått-penningspel

[Greger Sundin]

Dear All,

During my research on early modern board games, I've come across a game from Augsburg before 1630 that is described in 1694 as belonging to a "Pått-penning spel" (in Swedish, a "pot stake game" would perhaps be the best translation). It is a pierced second bottom of a drawer with 18 holes, ca. 2-3 cm in diameter each., leaving a height of ca. 2 cm underneath. There are no compartments, so everything that potentially falls through is mixed. The surface with the holes is quite dented as it would be from hard things being repeatedly dropped on it. The inventory further lists 10 copper jettons in the same drawer. It is not dressed in velvet like other compartments in the cabinet that would store game pieces, so it is probably not meant for storage.

Have any of you seen something similar? Any idea where to start?

Kind regards,

Greger Sundin,

Uppsala university

[George Pollard]

Hello Greger,

I think it looks like a penny-tossing game, and the 'jetons' and the denting would indicate that! The English games are named things similar to 'Pått-penning spel', for example 'pitch penny' or 'pitch into the pot', or there are more fanciful names like 'toad in the hole'. More details about these games are in the book Played at the Pub.

However, this particular example looks most like the Dutch/Belgian 'Tonspel'. Here's a video of someone playing Tonspel, and many more images of Tonspel variations appear in Google Search.

There are more complex versions as well like the French '(jeu de) la grenouille', or Spanish '(el jeugo de) la rana/del sapo'.

George

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[Stela maris Ferrarese]

Maybe it's a variant or the original of this game. Here is called Toad Game

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[ga...@thebiggamehunter.com]

Here is a larger photo of that game, called the Frog Toss game, which resides in the Centre National du Jeu, Boulogne-Billancourt, France.

—Bruce Whitehill

On Sep 21, 2019, at 7:16 PM, 'Stela maris Ferrarese' via bgs4ever <bgs4...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Maybe it's a variant or the original of this game. Here is called Toad Game

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El viernes, 20 de septiembre de 2019 00:12:04 ART, 'George Pollard' via bgs4ever <bgs4...@googlegroups.com> escribió:

Hello Greger,

I think it looks like a penny-tossing game, and the 'jetons' and the denting would indicate that! The English games are named things similar to 'Pått-penning spel', for example 'pitch penny' or 'pitch into the pot', or there are more fanciful names like 'toad in the hole'. More details about these games are in the book Played at the Pub.

However, this particular example looks most like the Dutch/Belgian 'Tonspel'. Here's a video of someone playing Tonspel, and many more images of Tonspel variations appear in Google Search.

There are more complex versions as well like the French '(jeu de) la grenouille', or Spanish '(el jeugo de) la rana/del sapo'.

George

On Thu, 19 Sep 2019 at 21:11, Greger Sundin <anno...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear All,

During my research on early modern board games, I've come across a game from Augsburg before 1630 that is described in 1694 as belonging to a "Pått-penning spel" (in Swedish, a "pot stake game" would perhaps be the best translation). It is a pierced second bottom of a drawer with 18 holes, ca. 2-3 cm in diameter each., leaving a height of ca. 2 cm underneath. There are no compartments, so everything that potentially falls through is mixed. The surface with the holes is quite dented as it would be from hard things being repeatedly dropped on it. The inventory further lists 10 copper jettons in the same drawer. It is not dressed in velvet like other compartments in the cabinet that would store game pieces, so it is probably not meant for storage.

Have any of you seen something similar? Any idea where to start?

Kind regards,

Greger Sundin,

Uppsala university

<IMG_6815.JPG>

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<1569085773704blob.jpg><IMG_6815.JPG><IMG_6814.JPG>

[Jonas Richter]

Dear Greger,

a similar game (but with more holes) is described in German under the name "Scheffel-Spiel" in Palamedes Redivivus, 1733:

http://dl.ub.uni-freiburg.de/diglit/palamedes1733/0227

Kind regards
Jonas

[Greger Sundin]

Dear Jonas,

Thank you for that tip. What is similar to all of these suggestions is that the holes are numbered or assigned with points with in some way, while the holes in this Augsburg example are equal. The main goal seems to just get through any hole. If that relates to an accumulated value of the copper jettons, or if there was an implicit "point plan”, I don’t know but I’ll continue to look. 

Many thanks, Jonas!

Best,

Greger Sundin

PhD Candidate   |   Dept. of Art History   |   Uppsala University   |   greger...@konstvet.uu.se

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[Greger Sundin]

Also, many thanks to Bruce ans Stela Maris Ferrarese for your input. These tossing games are interesting, but seems oriented towards Benelux, Britain, France, and Spain. Do we know of any more central European / German examples?

Best,

Greger Sundin

PhD Candidate   |   Dept. of Art History   |   Uppsala University   |   greger...@konstvet.uu.se

On 22 September 2019 at 15:05:30, ga...@thebiggamehunter.com (ga...@thebiggamehunter.com) wrote:

Here is a larger photo of that game, called the Frog Toss game, which resides in the Centre National du Jeu, Boulogne-Billancourt, France.

—Bruce Whitehill

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[Bert Vertommen]

Hello, 

My first thought was also that it resembles the the tonspel.

This particular wood looks like mahogany, which was a rare and expensive tropical wood, not readily available in the 17th century. And not well suited to throw hard metal objects at. Though it is strong, it splinters. Ash, beech or elm would be more suited.

This made me wonder if maybe the copper jetons could belong to another game or serve as tokens. The fact that there are no compartiments makes me think that maybe the game was more like the billard japonais or jeu de baraque, where ball, slightly bigger than the holes would end up hanging half in and above numbered holes to score.

I havent heard of a billard japonais with a rectangle shape, but it could be possible that one would throw balls into the drawer.

Op donderdag 26 september 2019 om 11:16:30 UTC+2 schreef Greger Sundin:

[Bert Vertommen]

I just came across this one, around 1930 in Friesland, in the north of the Netherlands)
https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/onderzoeken/fotocollectie/35429da7-4335-a382-e063-6df0900a6686?searchKey=5cba136f1ce6579c21e6ef1021b9922e

it was apparently previously forbidden for a while, most likely for being a game of chance.

Op zondag 23 maart 2025 om 21:33:37 UTC+1 schreef Bert Vertommen: