| Put & Take tops were very popular
from the 19th century to about the 1940’s. They could
be carried in ones pocket and used anytime in a bar or other
gathering place for an impromptu gambling session. Each
player would contribute chips, coins or currency to a pot.
They would take turns spinning the top. Some tops had six sides,
others eight sides. The roots of the game can be
traced far back -- four-sided
Hebrew Chanukah dreidel and Victorian England pub
games. Other web sites: Thomas' Spinning Tops Collection,
here (Arjan Verweij dice
home page), and here (Arjan Verweij put
and take page), and here
. If it landed T1, T2 or T3, the player who spun it would win (take) 1, 2 or 3 chips, respectively, from the pot. If it landed with the star or “Take All” showing, he would take all the chips from the pot. If it landed P1, P2 or P3, he would lose (put) 1, 2 or 3 of his chips, respectively, into the pot. If it landed "0" or “Put All” or “All Put,” he would have to match the pot or lose all his chips or each player would have to contribute to the pot, depending on the rules. In the many pictures below are some of the over 50 Put and Takes in my collection, plus some similar horse racing and dice tops. Be sure to see the last set of pictures, which show how Put and Take tops can be rigged for cheating! |
| Pictured above are the
most common type of Put and Takes. They were
usually small, about an inch high, and made of brass. They
can be distinguished from each other in a variety of ways,
as is apparent on this page. ¶ In groups "5" and "7," above, the words are lined up with/go in the same direction as the stem of the Put and Take top. In the other groupings the words are upright/perpendicular to the stem. ¶ In group "1" and "3" the tops are 'bi-level." That is, there are two independently moving parts. In "1" the P's and T's are on the top level and the amounts (1, 2, 3, etc.) are on the lower level. Also in "1," some of the tops represent two dice. In group "3," generally the pay-off odds are indicated in the top level, and the name of a horse is on the bottom level; the horse-betting ones have the name of famous race horses and were copyrighted in the 1920's. ¶ In groups "4" and "5," the letters have no serifs (those short, fancy hanging lines at the ends of the letters), while in "2" and "7" there are serifs. ¶ The tops in group "6" are made of sterling. ¶ The tops in "2" and "4" are 8-sided. The others are 6-sided. |
| These are other miscellaneous
metal Put and Takes. A number of them are sterling.
Note the different sizes. One near
the upper left is a pin. The dark one near the
upper right is a cube-shaped metal Put and Take. Just
below it is a 4-sided top. The two at the lower right
and lower left have internal spinning dials. The reddish
one near the top has a needle and thread inside. |
| These Put and Takes are
non-metal. About half are made of catalin;
others bone, wood, celluloid and ordinary plastic.
Some are bi-level. Three of them are mechanical
lead pencils that are to be rolled for the Put and Take effect.
Two of the tops are celluloid advertising pieces --
one touts Manbeck's Bread ("A winner everywhere"); the other
says "You don't gamble when you buy Trenton Crackers." The
white 4-sided one at the bottom is made of ivory. The
one next to it is 4-sided wood. The red one next to it
is plastic with a compartment for solid perfume. |
| These are Put and Take
punch boards and punch cards. |
| These are combination
games that include Put and Take (also called Plus
and Minus on one). The bottom one is made
of wood. It is, among other things, a roulette
wheel. It is 14" in diameter, was copyrighted 1933
by the Cardinal Co., Dallas, Texas. |
| The above three pictures
show how a Put and Take can be rigged for cheating.
The typed instructions came with the rigged
tops when ordered from a gambling supply house. The
scanned instructions and catalog page are from the K.C..
Card Co.-Mason & Co. "Blue Book" (copyright 1932), which
at that time had offices in eight major cities across the
U.S. Notice how the middle ones are nice and symmetrical -- straight/fair/honest. In both pictures, notice how the tops on the right are shaved on the lower right side of the "T2" face, and the tops on the left are shaved on the lower left side of of the "T2" face. Knowing this would give a favorable percentage to the user; he wouldn't always win on every spin, but would come out a winner in the long run. These are 8-sided tops. The "takes" are opposite each other (for example, opposite the "T2" is a "T3"). Likewise with the "puts." So it would work this way, using the top on the left as an example (the one where the left bottom of the "T2" face is shaved some): if you spun the top clockwise (as a right handed person ordinarily would), it would more often land on the "put" side because if the top slowed down near the "T2" side, it would continue past the extra rounded (shaved) edge and land on the adjoining Put side (or as the Instructions put it more simply: "When spun to the right, a Put will show....."). And as you would expect, on this top, all four of the Take sides are shaved on the bottom left, and on all four Put sides, all of the bottom rights are shaved. Just the opposite would happen if you spin the same top counterclockwise or the top on the right clockwise. |
