The photograph on the left is of a copy of this game produced by Phillips Publishers Inc. of Newton, Mass., U.S. under Patent Number 2,614,727 in the early 1950s. A second copy of this game with a somewhat different look was produced by Parker Brothers, Inc. of Salem, Mass. and was copyrighted in 1957. The copy in the photograph was donated to the Museum in 1970, while the Parker Brothers version was donated to the Museum in 1987.
With respect to the photograph and the orange plastic container (which is part of the game), the bottom of the cup is 5.5cm in diameter and the rim is 7cm in diameter. The cup is 7.9cm high. The lid is 7.5cm diameter x .7cm thick with a lip that snaps on to the top of the cup. The yellow plastic letter cubes are 1.2cm with a black capital letter imprinted on each side. There are 15 letter cubes in the set.
The intent of the game for 2 or more players, one player at a time puts the letter cubes in the cup, covers the cup, shakes the cup to randomize the cubes, and then open the cup and SPILLs the letters out on to a flat surface. Each player gets points for all the words they can SPELL from the letters appearing on the upper face of the cubes. The player announces out loud and spells out the words they wish to use to accumulate points. A one minute timer is included with the game, and may be used to limit how long a player has to score points. After a player completes their round, the next player repeats the actions. An arbitary winning score may be set at the begining of a game by the players. For example, a winner of a round of play may be the player who scores the most for that round; or players may decide that the first player to score 100 is the winner, regardless of the number of rounds.
Last update April 1, 2010