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Clifford Von Wickler


Clifford Von Wickler is a game designer who invented the classic board game Battleship in the early 1900s, but he never patented the game. The game was published by Milton Bradley Company in 1931.

However, Theodor Lauppert wrote this view:
According to many sources Battleship was invented around 1900 by one Clifford Von Wickler, who however never patented it. This is highly unlikely, since the name Clifford Von Wickler itself is unlikely, and pen-and-paper games typically played by kids at school rarely have a traceable inventor.

The rule variations in the different countries point to a traditional, not invented game. The name might be a misspelling of Clifford Van Wickler; at least one family Van Wickler exists, and since it has an American branch, the first name Clifford would be plausible as well. Some articles indeed state the name of the inventor as Clifford Van Wickler, but no man of that name is ever mentioned outside the context of Battleship.



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Battleship  [1931]

Battleship was originally a pencil-and-paper public domain game known by different names, but Milton Bradley made it into the well known board game in 1967. The pencil and paper grids were changed to plastic grids with holes that could hold plastic ...