[MR] DuckPins

[Duke Galmr Ingolfsson]

Achbar ibn Ali wrote:

>How Period are they?
>  
>
You mean bowling with 6" balls and smaller pins than regular bowling?  
It's not period at all.  Duckpin bowling was inventing in Baltimore, MD 
around 1900 by adapting a small ball that was used for variations on the 
10 pin bowling game to the more standard rule set.  It quicly became 
popular and was a great excuse to keep the bowling alleys open in the 
spring and summer (10pin leagues were tradidtionally a fall/winter 
thing). Duckpins started being used for league play in 1903. 

So the roots of the game go back further, the balls had already existed 
at the time and had been used for variations of 10 pin bowling that are 
no long played today.  But I couldn't imagine it going back too far as a 
recognizable game.

Duckpins is mostly a regional thing, I haven't met many people outside 
Maryland who has ever heard of it.

Galmr (a Baltimore native)