Waddingtons Number 1 Playing Card Game, play with the classic Red and Blue Twin Pack, great travel companion, gift and toy for Boys, Girls and adults.

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Lexicon | V&A Explore The Collections". Victoria and Albert Museum. 4 March 2000 . Retrieved 24 May 2022. 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. 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. Above: Number 1 playing cards manufactured during war-time rationing with the reference “war-time restrictions” on the box. Image courtesy Ken Lodge.

Current restrictions" was used on the boxes as soon as the War was over in reference to the continuing supply problems. These boxes were used from 1946-c.1950. Image courtesy Matt Probert. The company was established as a printing business, and at first 'practically all its business related to the theatre'. [1] It entered into game production in 1922, due to a boom in demand for playing cards around World War I. [2] Waddingtons subsequently sold both original games (especially tie-ins for UK television programmes) and games licensed from other publishers. The characters of the court cards are chosen from Shakespeare's plays and are arranged into the four suits as follows: Note that these are wide cards; John Berry claims that wide cards were introduced in 1925, but these cards clearly show that that is wrong. 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.” David Thornton, Leeds: A Historical Dictionary of People, Places and Events (Huddersfield: Northern Heritage Publications, 2013), s.v. WADDINGTONS.

In Volume V of Churchill’s “The Second World War” there is a printed memo from the Prime Minister to the President of the Board of Trade, which reads as follows: In 1934 the rights for 'Monopoly' were won, which has produced about half a million pounds’ sales each year since then and set the firm on the road to greatness in the toy trade in the UK. Samples: for Mudie with old courts (G6), c.1928, note the change to Ltd on the AS; with redrawn courts (GD9), with the late Q-index, c.1937

After 1940 the slimline cards disappeared, but were resurrected again after the war with Goodall courts (see below for the illustration). Waddington’s began their ' Beautiful Britain' series depicting scenes of seaside, rural and historic resorts in 1924. Above: an anonymous Ace of Spades with an elaborate design used by John Waddington Ltd, c.1925. The cards have gold edges and depict a hunting scene on the reverse. See more early cards → Above: Orient Line to Australia twin patience set with special ace of spades, issued to passengers on the Orient Line mail steamers travelling from England to Australia, c.1925.