The stories, interests and accomplishments
of some collectors of games and puzzles
If you want to be listed here, tell us something about yourself, your collection and your collecting interests. When did you start collecting? Why? How much have you amassed over time? Do you have a specialty? What are you still looking for? Where and how do you store and/or display your collection? What advice would you give people interested in starting a collection?
Contact Bruce by email: games at the big game hunter dot com (@.no spaces) and include in the subject of your email “for website.”
Click on the collector’s name to be taken directly there:
Geert Bekkering [no need to click -- he's the first one listed; scroll down.]
Rudolf Rühle
Albert Veldhuis
Bruce Whitehill
Geert Bekkering, Nederland (The Netherlands);
jigsaw puzzles
Three collectors: Geert Bekkering, Gejus van Diggele, and Bruce Whitehill
(See also “Game Researchers“)
My puzzle collecting interest is in:
European puzzles that show a producer, prior to 1940, so mostly with their box.
Any information on production (also private), catalogues, sale, lending, and puzzling habits.
Extraordinary puzzles; subjects, materials or shape.
Puzzles that tell a story on society, on history, on their owners …
Puzzles in relation to teaching (geography).
Especially puzzles produced in the 1720-1850 period.
Geert & wife Betsy doing Escher jigsaw
Geert also has done an exhibition of Dutch paper toys, including games. A few are shown here.
Lotto-Frans-beweegbaar
Warenhuis-spel
Vredesspel
Rudolf Rühle, Collector Historian
Deutschland (Germany)
[Watch the space...]
Rudolf Ruehle and Bruce Whitehill, 1997
Albert C. Veldhuis and his Monopoly history;
Nederland (The Netherlands)
I think I was rather late in discovering Monopoly. (By the way, I’m as old as Monopoly, based on the assumption the “birth” of Monopoly was in 1935). After 3 years of living in a Japanese women’s camp I came to Holland with my second father, mother and brother in December 1946.
I don’t remember where the game came from but very soon we had at our disposal a copy of the pre-war English edition, i.e. the mini box with separate game board of London. It was in the days of the last classes of my elementary school, and subsequent secondary school that we played Monopoly over the whole weekend, leaving the game board in the situation as it was, on the floor of the bedroom, running up towering debts until a next step was the unevitable one for bankruptcy.
But then I hadn’t even touched the game for many, many years until 1985.
Besides to Paint Inspection Instruments (English made), I was selling industrial glassware (pipe-lines, chemical pilot plants, from Corning-USA and Sovirel-F) when one day one of my collegues pointed out to me a newspaper article on the introduction of the 1935 tin, i.e. the 50th anniversary edition. It was this moment I started collecting. I remember the first set I got was a standard ENGLISH edition I exchanged with an English bussiness relation for a …. Dutch cheese! And later on I bought (or got) other editions when I was on bussiness trips to Germany, Switserland or France. And that is how it started.
With the introduction of Internet, email and ebay worldwide contacts made it rather easy to get games from all over the world. But a quantity of 400 editons appeared to be about my limit to collect. I had the feeling that from there on it all became just “more of the same”.
De-Monopoloog-75-jaar
I had an over-all view of what there was in the world, I was not interested (apart from getting lack of storage room in my house) to collect any more, but I wanted to do something with the MATERIAL I had collected as well as the KNOWLEDGE I had gathered over the years. I heard from a couple of collectors saying they were writing a BOOK, but the years passed and no books were plublished. To my opinion a BOOK is already old the moment it appears so I thought “I will start publishing a CATALOGUE/better LEXICON on the Internet” which can be actualized any moment! And so that started in the spring of 1997.
I have not at all the intention to be even somewhat complete in my descriptions of Monopoly issues in which ever country. On the other hand I like to mention apparently unimportent things like newpaper articles on an issue, because I think that shows the importance or impact of the game at that very moment.
I also like to COMPARE different publications on a same subject, like the American and Dutch Gay editions, German and American Bible sets, American and Dutch drugs/sex editions, American Millennium Editions from Parker Brothers and Late-For-The-Sky, the German München editions: Bayerische Ausgabe of 1978 in comparison to your Winning Move edition of 1998, a Dutch Wine edition (“Grand Vin”) compared to the USAOPOLY issue (“Nappa Vally”) and so on and so on.
But there are more things in Monopolyland to ask people’s attention for! It off and on happens some artist makes an artwork in Monopoly, be it painted on walls by spray cans or “real” artists, imitators making a Monopoly-Mondriaan or doctor a famous Caravaggio painting into a group of 16th century men playing Monopoly, so showing this game exsisted already in that era!
An other way of expression of having pleasure with Monopoly is making a “Self-made” edition for whatever reason. In fact that was how it all started after the invention of Lizzy Magie, isn’t it?!
Since I met “inland made editions” of very “far away countries”, or at least countries I myself did not exactly know where they are situated I decided to add a little map to the chapter of the concerning country. Another reason to add such a map was f.e. for Austria, where the inland manufacturer make games per district.
Hasbro-opname, with Albert Veldhuis in hat
Acquaintances like Bruce Whitehill, Spartaco Albertarelli, Ralph Anspach, Dan Glimne, Thomas Fortsyte, even Jehudith Inbar from Yad Vahsem in Israel, Hervé Théry and many, many collectors from all over the world are always very helpful and willing to share the story of their games and knowledge with me!
Although people often write me that my LEXICON is very impressive (and similar words) I know there is much more to do so I hope to be able to continue this work for many years to come. And again: because of Internet I can give it to the world the moment I’ve written something new. That is my pleasure with Monopoly!
Click here to go to Albert’s Monopoly Lexicon.
Bruce Whitehill, American in Germany; games & puzzles
I began doing research on a few games I loved, like Scrabble, in the late 1970s and then began collecting in the early 1980s. 
I loved unusual antiques and gadgets and thought that the best way to own them was to buy them, live with them a while, and then sell them. 
So I started going to antique shows, buying and selling. When I couldn’t fit my stuff into my Karmann Ghia any more (including a table I once borrowed and then returned by strapping it over the back seat while the top was down), I rented a small trailer. My girlfriend and I did weekend shows away, covering the beautiful coast of California when I was living in Half Moon Bay (on the coast South of San Francisco). Considering the trailer rental, gas, hotel, booth costs and what have you, I lost between $20 and $60 each show. We had a great time, but I couldn’t continue losing money, so I finally sold all the antiques–except the games I had found, which I thought were too beautiful and interesting to part with, and which were lightweight and easy to carry and store. That started the collection.
After buying and selling — mostly buying — for over 25 years, I sold about 6000 games to the Ludothèque de Boulogne-Billancourt, a games archive near Paris, a group that’s setting itself up as The National Center for Games (Centre National du Jeu). http://www.ludotheque.com/spip.php?article282 I live in Germany now, so my interests include the comparison of similar games made in the U.S. and in Europe.
My collection now consists of about 800 games in various categories, such as: Americana & Pop Culture • Literature • Cartoon & Comic • Classics • Finance • Historic (notable in game history) • History, Geography & Travel • Movies & Theater • Mystery • Personality & Stars • Politics & Propaganda • Space Exploration and Aviation • Unusual Sports (like sumo) • Television & Radio • War (military, conflict, medieval) • Western (cowboys, Indians, wild west).
I have a special, large collection of Halma games and Chinese Checkers (Stern Halma), as I am doing research. 
Plus various versions of other specific games such as Operation, Careers and Clue (Cluedo), 
and an assortment of Uncle Wiggily and Hare and Tortoise games.
I have games I consider special for their graphics, their construction, their playing pieces or the way they play,
along with large wooden games (like skittles and bagatelle games). Strangely enough, the category in which I have the most games is Skill & Action, since many of these are not only collectible but fun to play, and they make great three-dimensional displays for exhibits; I like all sorts of “playable-collectible” games.
And I have “Bruce games,” a name given by my colleagues.
Urk - 1977, Dunick Industries
A “Bruce game” is an odd, unique, relatively unknown game that nobody else would want and has very little market value. 
All that plus dozens of game books and loads of newer games to play, as my wife, Sybille, is an avid collector with a large collection of German games of her own.
Two-player games
The games to play are on display, as are some of the more interesting collectible ones. Most everything else is in plastic bins in the attic, unfortunately not climate controlled.
Besides this, I have the world’s largest collection of advertising & premiums games, which are not yet catalogued and are currently on loan to the Centre National du Jeu.
My “want list” is minimal, as I have most of the games I want, now, and can’t afford the truly superb stuff from the 19th century. I am looking for games by Willis G. Young, especially MY-BUST, international variations of Clue/Cluedo, Careers (Karriere) and Halma, and variations of the “Operation” theme. I am looking for information on Willis G. Young (1914-1917) and The Henriksen Mfg. Co., a 1920s Chicago company that had the same address as Young. And I’m always interested in early version of games that have changed their name or rules over time.
As for advice to people thinking about starting a collection: Start now! Prices are very low at the moment though it’s hard to find items. Check some of the other articles in the “Collecting” section of this website.
