No tipcat (not: no tip cat)

[hrj]

Alas, tipcat has had to be scratched from the Games Tourney lineup. (This is the game I've been describing as "tiddly winks played with sticks".) When I got one stick roughed out enough to try out, it failed utterly to perform up to expectations. This annoys me not only because I thought it would be fun to include, but because normally I have a pretty good instinct for the physics of things. In my mind, I could see how it would work. I dislike having my instincts fail me. They've saved me an awful lot of trial and error over the years.

Comments

[fitzw.livejournal.com]

Tipcat -- wasn't that used by Laurel & Hardy as a weapon in their version of "Babes of Toyland", using darts instead of cats?

[jducoeur]

Okay, you've gotten the Waks Research Library intrigued. Having not come across Tip-Cat before, my immediate reaction was "Is that period?". Which, having tracked it back from Gomme through Strutt to Singman and Willoughby, I find that it more or less is.

Anything we can do to help? While I'm at best a passing researcher, I do have a really, really good library when it comes to period games (basically a full bookcase on the subject), and msmemory found some websites with pictures of extant period cats (which seem to match the crudely-drawn pictures in Willoughby), along with a US Patent for a newer, better shape for the cat.

Out of curiosity, which version of the rules were you thinking of playing? I'm finding several variants from the 17th through 19th centuries.

(And in case it isn't obvious: thanks for an excuse to do some amusing research. I'm going to have to put a new section into the Period Games Page...)