{"id":2243261,"date":"2026-11-07T07:44:16","date_gmt":"2026-11-07T04:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2243261"},"modified":"2026-11-07T07:44:16","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T04:44:16","slug":"long-lost-pepys-board-game-found-in-attic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2243261","title":{"rendered":"Long-lost Pepys board game found in attic"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/8b49\/live\/18e84aa0-d861-11f1-85ab-b3cc3b5498c6.png”]<\/p>\n

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\"TonyTony Boydell<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The Stop or Go game is now on display at the Museum of Board Games in Gloucestershire<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A rare prototype of a board game – described by a museum curator as a holy grail – has been discovered in an attic amidst a box of childhood toys.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Stop or Go, a road safety game played on a grid with counters, was designed in the 1940s by the games company Pepys, but was never manufactured.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Heidi Gibbs found what is believed to be a pre-production version of the game amidst her late grandmother’s belongings and approached the Museum of Board Games in Newent in the Forest of Dean. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Curator Tony Boydell confirmed it was “the rarest Pepys game by a mile” as the game was known about but had never been seen. It has now been bought by the museum and is on permanent display.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Boydell said even the most knowledgeable “guru” of the company’s archive, Rex Pitts, who wrote a book about the history of Pepys, had never seen a copy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“It became very clear that this is something of a holy grail, it’s a real treasure,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"HeidiHeidi Gibbs<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Stop or Go is a board game about road safety<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Players throw the dice and move counters along the squares to the finishing line, choosing whether to obey the Highway Code or take a chance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Boydell said he believed the game may have been discarded because it involved an element of risk-taking.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“For a small museum, to be able to get hold of something unique within the history of the games of a major British publisher is really unique,” he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Gibbs, from Norfolk, said the game had stood out amongst her grandmother’s toys due to its age.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“It looked very old-fashioned, but in a very good condition as well,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“I contacted someone to do with Pepys board games and he had a look at it and said, ‘obviously that is the exact game that is missing’. I thought it was absolutely amazing.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Gibbs said she decided to sell the game to the museum because she wanted board game fans to be able to “see and appreciate” it. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"TonyTony Boydell<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Heidi sold the game to Tony Boydell (L) at the Museum of Board Games in Newent<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The mystery remains, though, as to how the game ended up in her grandmother’s attic, as the family has no connection to Pepys.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Board game fans and collectors of Pepys memorabilia reacted with “real warmth” to the discovery, according to Boydell. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Philip Dennis, 73, from Aberystwyth in West Wales, said board games “tell us a lot about our social history”. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“My games collection from the 1750s onwards contains a lot that were just played on Sundays because they were educational and so they were permitted,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Modern games are totally different to old games, but I think it’s interesting to see how they’ve developed over the years,” Dennis added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Follow BBC Gloucestershire on <\/i>Facebook<\/i>, <\/i>X<\/i> and <\/i>Instagram<\/i>. Send your story ideas to us on email or via <\/i>WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/c6vg7ly3105qo”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/8b49\/live\/18e84aa0-d861-11f1-85ab-b3cc3b5498c6.png”] Tony Boydell The Stop or Go game is now on display at the Museum of Board Games in Gloucestershire A rare prototype of a board game – described by a museum curator as a holy grail – has been discovered in an attic amidst a box of childhood toys. Stop or Go, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[35,226],"class_list":["post-2243261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-bbc-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2243261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2243261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2243261\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2243261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2243261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2243261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}