|Description: A boxed childrens game .1) The box top is paperboard with the top and sides covered with glossy red paper. There is a paper label glued on the top. It has a blue background with red and yellow print and green, red, and yellow designs. A small white label with black print reading "Word Making No. 645" is glued on the lower proper right corner of the proper right side. On the inside of the box top, handwritten in pencil is "Scholar" ; also "S" and "L". .2) The box bottom is of paperboard with the sides covered with glossy red paper. .3) The game rules are printed in black ink on both sides of a grey-tan coloured paper. .4) A box insert of paperboard has its top edge partially covered with glossy red paper. Its upper corners are stapled. (.5 - .356) Letters of paperboard. The reverse is covered with glossy dark red paper. The letters are printed in black ink. The upper case are Times Roman-style; lower case are script as from a fountain pen. .351) A 'cheater' upper case 'R', handwritten on reverse of green heavy weight lined paper. |
Word Making and Word Taking was a Victorian game which the pre-cursor to Anagrams. The letter tiles were laid out, letters facing down on a flat surface. Each player would then take turns turning letters over. When a player could make a word with the letters facing up they would say the word aloud and use the letters to write it in front of them. Players could steal words from other players by adding letters and rearranging the word, i.e finding an anagram. The winner could be determined in any number of ways including letters used, words made or unused tiles. Today anagram games are often played with scrabble tiles.
This item was donated by Geoffrey Harris Sayers. Geoffrey and his sisters, Dora Sayers Caro, and Barbara Sayers Larson donated Benares Historic House to the Ontario Heritage Foundation in 1969. It has operated as a museum under the City of Mississauga since 1995 and was officially transferred to Mississauga in 2000. Geoffrey Sayers and his wife Kathleen (née Colloton) occupied Benares from 1969 until 1981. During that time, they acted as care takers of the estate on behalf of the Ontario Heritage Foundation. They kept a small display of artifacts in the kitchen, and opened up the house once a year to the public.