A NEW COMBINATION GAME BOARD APPLICABLE TO THE GAMES OF BACK- GAMMON, CHESS, AND OTHER SIMILAR GAMES
Year: 1871

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Francis Asbury Armstrong, of No. 9, Capel
Terrace, Bow, in the County of Middlesex, Merchant, trading
under the Firm of F. A. Armstrong & Co., for the Invention of
"A NEW COMBINATION GAME BOARD APPLICABLE TO THE GAMES OF BACK-
GAMMON, CHESS, AND OTHER SIMILAR GAMES." -A communication from
abroad by William Hearne, of the City, County, and State of
New York, United States of America.
Sealed the 30th January 1872, and dated the 1st August 1871.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Francis Asbury
Armstrong at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with
his Petition, on the 1st August 1871.
I, FRANCIS ASBURY ARMSTRONG, of No. 9, Capel Terrace, Bow, in
the County of Middlesex, Merchant, trading under the Firm of F. A.
Armstrong & Co., do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"A NEW COMBINATION GAME BOARD APPLICABLE TO THE GAMES OF BACKGAMMON,
CHESS, AND OTHER SIMILAR GAMES," to be as follows:-
This Invention consists of a game board which may be made of wood

page_text: or other material, or materials having a play surface corresponding
substantially to the following description and more particularly illus-
trated by the Drawing hereunto annexed.
A backgammon board is represented by a square of 144 squares
appropriately divided by distinctive lines into four tables containing six
colums of squares each.
A Polish draught board is represented by a square of 100 squares
centrally localized within the backgammon board.
A chess board is represented by a square of 64 squares centrally
localized within the Polish draught board.
A fox and geese board is represented by a cross of five four square)
squares centrally localized within the chess board.
A solitaire board is represented by a six sided figure containing the
fox and geese board and four extra squares between its wings.
A nine men morris board is represented by a square of 36 squares
containing the fox and geese board and appropriately divided by it.
A pyramidal draught board is represented by a triangular half of the
Polish one.
A garrison board is represented by the fox and geese board and a
surrounding tier of squares added to it.
The adjoining diagonal rows of squares of each game board are
distinguished from each other by different colors or shades.
The several game boards are localized as follows, videlicit, all of them,
by distinctive boundary lines:-The Polish draught, the chess, the fox.
and geese board, by differently colored or shaded squares of the same
diagonal rows on opposite sides of their boundary limits; the chess
board by a tier of distinctive figures upon the outside tier of squares
of the Polish draught board.
Some other distinctive figures, variations in colors or shades, of
squares and diagonal lines within the fox and geese board improve the
localization of parts described.
My claims of novelty are limited to the combinations of the different
game boards as herewith described and shown on Drawing.
I claim as my Invention a combination game board substantially
as herewith described and shown, or one having represented upon

page_text: its play surface a Polish draught and chess board, or a (fox and geese)
and chess board substantially as herewith described and shown on
Drawings.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said Francis Asbury Armstrong in the Great Seal
Patent Office on the 31st January 1872.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, FRANCIS
ASBURY ARMSTRONG, of No. 9, Capel Terrace, Bow, in the County of
Middlesex, Merchant, trading under the Firm of F. A. Armstrong & Co.,
send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the First day of August, in the year of
our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-one, in the thirty-
fifth year of Her reign, did for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give
and grant unto me, the said Francis Asbury Armstrong, Her special
licence that I, the said Francis Asbury Armstrong, my executors,
administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Francis Asbury
Armstrong, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any
time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times
thereafter during the term therein expressed, should and lawfully might
make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Inven-
tion for "A NEW COMBINATION GAME BOARD APPLICABLE TO THE GAMES OF
BACKGAMMON, CHESS, AND OTHER SIMILAR GAMES," a communication to me
from abroad by William Hearne, of the City, County, and State of New
York, United States of America, upon the condition (amongst others)
that I, the said Francis Asbury Armstrong, my executors or adminis-
trators, by an instrument in writing under my, or their, or one of their
hands and seals, should particularly describe and ascertain the nature
of the said Invention, and in what manner the same was to be performed,.
and cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within
six calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said
Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Francis Asbury Armstrong, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner

page_text: the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained
in and by the following statement :—
It is a game board which may be any article of manufacture suitable
for its game uses which has a play surface substantially corresponding
to the following description, which is illustrated by the Drawing herewith.
It is divided by colors or by colors and lines into squares, supposing
them as they follow each other horizontally and perpendicularly, as do
the two colors of an ordinary checker board, to be alternately called A
and B, beginning with one of the lightest colored squares as an A;
each A is of a different color from that of each B. For the better
defining of the boundary limits of its game board parts without un-
necessarily taking thereby from its likeness with respect to the colors
of its squares to an ordinary checker board, I think it best for the
squares of the outside tier of the square backgammon and of the chess
board, the next to the corner ones of the nine men morris board hereafter
described to be of two colors, and for the other squares of the board to
be of two other colors, and for the colors which go together to define
boundary limits to be either the darkest and lightest or the medium
colors, but for each A nevertheless to be lighter than either B, as shewn
by the Drawing, or for the A's to be of two varieties of one color, as pea
green and grass green, and for the B's to be of two varieties of another
color, as scarlet red and crimson red, or both ways, so that its squares
may follow each other horizontally and perpendicularly, as light and
dark, or green and red, or of some other two colors, or both ways, and so
that they may form diagonal rows following each other in like manner.
The following superficial game boards containing different groups of
its squares are represented upon the Drawing as follows, vizt.:-
A backgammon board is represented by a square of 144 colored
squares quartered by conspicuously distinctive lines into four tables each
containing six columns of six squares each, which columns are the
opposite halves of its twelve rows of squares parallel to cither of its sides
and corresponding to the ordinary points. Their lowest squares are of
two colors which follow each other alternately as do those of the ordinary
points. Middle backgammon parts four squares wide corresponding to
Their
the ordinary wide blank spaces are bounded by distinctive line
localization is improved by distinctive figures upon their corner squares.
In using the style of board described for backgammon the lowest
man upon a column is best placed upon its lowest square, the next one'

page_text: upon its next lowest one, and so on as far as their number admits, and
extra ones are best placed upon the tops of others. A square one may
be used for backgammon in either of two directions, substituting squares
for the ordinary holes, and checkers for the ordinary pegs; it may be
used as either a two or three handed cribbage board, because it has upon
each of its sides twelve columns of five squares each and a surplus one.
The central point of the board corresponds to the ordinary end hole. In
using it as a cribbage board its squares upon each useable side are to be
supposed to be regularly numbered from 1 to 60 beginning with a corner
square as though the lowest one of each following column followed

page_text: after described help to make conspicuous the corner points of its great
squares and the middle points of their sides, which are the points of
play.
A fox and geese board is represented by a cross of five four square
squares bisected by diagonal lines. The diagonal lines, which are
inclined at right angled directions to each other are upon differently
colored rows of squares. It occupies the nine men morris board minus
a four square square in each of its corners. It may be used for the
play of fox and geese, German tactics, otherwise called siege, and for
solitaire. For the last-named purpose its diagonal lines are superfluous
features. Its great central square is the inner one of the nine morris
board and may be used for the play of three men morris, otherwise
called tit tat to.
A solitaire board is represented by the fox and geese board minus its
diagonal lines and four corner squares between its wings added. It is
bounded by the end lines of the wings of the fox and geese board and
by slanting ones connecting them.
A double fox and geese board is represented by the fox and geese one
and a surrounding tier of squares added. Its four square squares are
partly bisected by the diagonal lines of the fox and geese board and by
others connecting the ends of its wings. Distinctive figures following
the squares upon which are the ends of the diagonal lines described,
and pointing in the same directions, are the equivalents of continuations
thereof, as indicating directions of play, and improve the localization of
the fox and geese board. It may be used for the play of fox and geese
played with double the usual number of pieces. It occupies the chess
board minus a four square square in each of its corners.
A triangular Polish draught board is represented by 55 squares of
the square one lying to one side of the next to one of its middle
diagonal rows of squares. It is bounded upon its diagonal side by
diagonal lines drawn through the next to one of its middle diagonal
rows. Its 55 squares may be used substantially as the useable half of
the 110 triangles making up what is called a pyramidal draught board.
For the game each of three players has 15 men arranged triangularly
in a corner of the board different from that occupied by either of the
others' men. Each moves parallel to the sides of his own corner and
crowns upon the side opposite.

page_text: A triangular draught board is represented by so much of the ch(83
board as lies within the triangular Polish board. It may be used in a
similar way to that of the larger one.
The several boards are represented upon the Drawing localized as
follows, each of them by distinctive lines:-The fox and geese, the
chess, the Polish draught, and the nine men morris board, excepting
the next to the corner ones of the last-named, by differently colored
squares upon opposite sides of their boundary limits. The backgammon
board by its margin. The localization of the Polish draught, of the
chess, and of the nine men morris board are improved by distinctive
figures upon the squares of the outside tier of the Polish draught, and
upon the corner ones of the nine men morris board.
Ordinary checkers may be used for marking the positions of the
board for the score of cribbage and for the play of games of back-
gammon, draughts, fox and geese, German tactics, morris, and solitaire,
and chess men for chess.
Descriptions of games suitable for the different boards, except the
double fox and geese and the triangular draught ones, may be found in
two books published by Dick and Fitzgerald, New York, called the
Pocket American Hoyle and How to Amuse an Evening Party.
My claims of novelty are limited to the combinations with cach other
of the different game boards, substantially as herewith described and
shewn.
I claim as my Invention a combination game board substantially as
herewith described and shewn, or one having represented upon its plan
surface either a chess board centrally localized within a Polish draught
board, or a fox and geese board centrally localized within a chess board,
substantially as herewith described and shewn.
In witness whereof, I, the said Francis Asbury Armstrong, have
hereunto set my hand and seal, this Thirty-first day of January,
in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-
Επο
FRANCIS ASBURY ARMSTRONG. (L.S.)