one hundred years of the paper flight
Yes, it’s true! The month
of November 2000 saw the 100th anniversary of the first patent of the paper dart
flight.
Until the end of the
nineteenth century the majority of darts thrown in inns and taverns in this
country and utilised in fairgrounds were imported from France. The French darts
were made of wood, had a needle point, sometimes with a lead weight round the
outside for better balance and always three or four turkey feathers as flights.
Darts is often described as
“a traditional English pub game” and, therefore, it would seem logical that any
new inventions relating to the game, especially at the turn of the century,
would come from, at least, within the British Isles.
The Actual Patent Application Dated November 1st, 1898
It will, therefore, come as
some surprise to anyone interested in the history of darts to discover in Derek
Brown’s The Guinness Book of Darts that “an American patented a folded paper
flight in 1898…”. Brown offers up no further details.
One of the great things
about undertaking research into the history of our sport is that, occasionally –
and I mean only occasionally – I come across people who are as interested in the
history of our sport as I am. I am indebted to two of these enthusiasts, Marc
Van Den Avond of Belgium and Steve Jara of the USA, for providing me with the
information that follows.
Yes, the paper flights are
an American invention. The inventor’s name was Nathan P. McKenney, of Dixon, in
the County of Lee, Illinois. Nathan filed his application of 11 March 1898 and
the specification, forming part of Letters Patent No. 613,386 was approved on 1
November 1898.
Those who know about darts
in America will tell you that darts did not really expand into a game to be
played in bars until the mid-twentieth century, so what was Mr McKenney doing
filing his application for a dart flight? The answer is simple. His patent was
for an improvement to a toy. McKenney wrote:
“My invention relates to
toys and games, and particularly to a game apparatus of the ‘dart and target’
type, and has for its object to provide a dart, adapted to be projected
manually, whereof the feather is of four-wing construction and is formed from a
foldable blank of paper or other flexible material to adapt it to be replaced
with facility”.
McKenney’s invention was
simple enough. The illustration here, extracted from the USA Patent Office
files, shows not only the paper flight and how to fold it, but also the type of
darts and targets which were being used, at least by children, in the USA at the
time.
Flights of either paper or
feathers have stayed with dart players until the present day, but, of course,
the materials used have diversified including plastic, vulcanised material and
polyester, nowadays the designs numbering tens of thousands.
Marc Van den Avon is
probably the world’s greatest collector of darts flights (technical term “belopterophilist”)
having more than 18,000 different flights and clearly he was very excited when
McKenny’s patent was traced. Marc told me: “I have collected flights for many
years and have always wanted to know who the man was who invented the paper
flight. Thanks to Steve Jara I now know that it was Nathan P. McKenney.”
So while darters across the
globe are celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the BDO and Darts World magazine
and the 21st year of the Embassy, let us just spare Nathan P. McKenney “a
citizen of the United States”, a thought or two and thank him, 100 years on, for
playing his part in the development of a game now loved and played today by
millions across the globe.
And that is how darts
research works best with enthusiasts sharing information in order to piece
together aspects of the history of our favourite sport. If you have any
information concerning the development in this country of the dart flight, the
dart or any other aspect of the game, please contact me, by
e-mail
Original research © 1998 Patrick Chaplin
© 2007 Patrick
Chaplin |
