Farkle?

[Charles Knutson]

Does anyone have real evidence that the dice game "Farkle" pre-dates the 20th century? I sell games of the past to historical reenactors, and have people asking about it every once in a while. But I have found no evidence for it prior to the 20th century, not even with the French name "dix mille" (10,000) that some people claim is its ancestor.

The website http://www.elversonpuzzle.com/farkle.html claims Farkle was "first played in Iceland by Sir Albert Farkle in the 14th century" but when I contacted them, and they could site no evidence except for the other webpages that made the same claim.

This Renaissance fair website http://www.faires.com/newfarkle.html suggests it goes back to Elizabethan times, but when I asked the webmaster said due to a computer crash he no longer had a record of where he found that claim.

 

Then there's this website that claims "the game Farkle was derived from the Farkleberry tree, a small tree native to Texas. When the early settlers came to Texas, they discovered the Farkleberry would harden as they dried. The settlers carved these berries into the shape of dice so that they might play games." http://home.comcast.net/~sallengrant/Farkle/index.htm

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

Have you run across the PDF http://coht.org/resources/farklebook.pdf which places the game within the references you have stated above. From there you might check with the publisher for further data perhaps.

[Charles Knutson]

I'm dropping them an Email, but I wonder if they're just repeating the same un-sourced online info.

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

Was a thought of an attempt. Hope it works we have come up with nothing else than the same. Even found your 2008 question of the same subject as well.