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In The Palm Of Your Hand: Early Dexterity Games - More about the exhibition

"A good puzzle should be simple in idea.  It should explain itself without any long instructions and it should look attractive."  Robert William Journet, 1927

The simple hand-eye challenge of rolling a ball into a hole, or sliding, nudging and tilting a capsule through a maze, has proved to be among the most delightful, maddening, and enduring diversions of the modern age, despite, or perhaps because of its sheer simplicity.  Soon after the games became popular with the public beginning in the late 1800s, they were produced in large numbers in the United States, England, France, Japan and Germany. The games could be found in doctors' offices, train stations, and in rainy-day game rooms of seaside resorts - in essence, anywhere that required waiting.  They were even nicknamed "patience games."

But whether straightforward or tricky, dexterity puzzles are objects of popular culture, as reflections of history, as advertisements, illustrations and graphic design they are a rich and revealing world.  Barbara Levine has a collection of dexterity puzzles from around the globe, dating from the earliest fads of the 1880's to the precursors of today's electronic hand-held games.  Her collection was the focus of a 2002 exhibition entitled In the Palm of Your Hand: Dexterity Games 1880-1960, presented by the San Francisco Main Pubic Library.

On view in this gallery are a few examples of the different styles of dexterity games.  Each manufacturing country tended to use different materials and graphics.  French games were typically glass and cardboard boxed sets with ornate patterned paper and lids.  German puzzles were round glass-topped with chromolithographed tin and often included a mirror on the reverse.  Games made in the United States were usually square and made of inexpensive tin and cardboard.  The firm of R. Journet and Company of London designed more than one hundred innovative glass-top dexterity games beginning in 1891 and contuing through the 1960's. Japanese puzzles are usually round and double sided including two games in one.  Dexterity games are affectionately known as your grandfather's gameboy and  included in this exhibition are also a few of the earliest electronic hand held games.

LET THE GAMES BEGIN!