edwin lowe

Last month I wrote about vintage Bingo games & The Game-Lovers Library Bingo game by Metro Manufacturing Co. At the same thrift shop, I also discovered not one but two copies of Bottoms-Up, a vintage game by E. S. Lowe Company. I grabbed them both for several reasons…

The collectibility: Along with my adoration of old games, Bottoms-Up is also a vintage game designed to sit on the shelf, like a book. Like Metro Mfg. Company’s Game-Lovers Library series, Lowe’s “Bookshelf of Games” were made in the 40’s, came in both the cheap and DeLuxe Editions (bound in Genuine Top-Grain Leather), and are smaller, portable sized games.

Vintage Bookshelf Of Games Bottoms-Up Game By E.S. Lowe

The ultimate reason for purchasing: The pig butt game pieces. Yup, you read that right; the game pieces feature the bottoms of pigs! My mom, who now has a nice collection of pig behinds, needed more — and I couldn’t pass the other game up for myself either. So I greedily snatched up both games on the spot.

Vintage Bottoms-Up Pig Butt Game Pieces

Now that I own the vintage game, I’ve fallen in love with it for other reasons…

While the pork playing pieces are absolutely charming, the final joy lies in the fact that Bottoms–Up is played like one of my favorite games, Shutbox aka Shut The Box.

You begin by hiding all the pig behinds, so that the nine pieces display their dot-numbered sides (1-9). Then you roll the dice, and then turn down (or ‘bottoms up’) playing pieces that equal the total sum of the numbers on both dice. For example, if you roll an 8, you may ‘bottoms up’ the 8, the 7 & 1, the 5, 2 & 1, or some other valid combination totaling 8. You keep rolling the dice & doing the math to display as many pig bottoms as you can, until you roll a sum which cannot be equaled in the remaining numbered pieces.

The goal is to get zero, or as low a score as you can when you add up the remaining numbered pieces. Then the next person plays and tries to beat your score.

According to the official game rules:

The game proceeds in this fashion until all players have had their chance at the play. The player remaining with the lowest number on his face-up blocks, wins the game and is credited with the number of points left by each other player.

If a player wins by turning down all of his blocks, he wins double and is credited with double of the amount of points remaining in every other player’s hand.

The official rules for Bottoms-Up state that this is a game of 2, 3, or 4 players; however, I enjoy playing the game alone, competing against myself for the lowest score (just as with Shutbox and Solitaire). No game-Nazi can prevent me from playing this way if I so choose. Besides, you can’t take away this option for a lover of vintage games… Not everyone will play old games with me — or for as long as I like.

And with Bottoms-Up, well, I guess it takes a special kind of game nerd to also get such a kick out of pig bottoms.

But the final reason to love this old game is for the irony. Edwin Lowe is said to be the father of the Bingo game:

…while traveling through Georgia one late December night in 1929, Lowe came across a country fair where a very popular game by the name of Beano was being played. Sensing a possible winner, Lowe inquired about the game, learned it had originally come from a fair in Germany, bought some of the game cards, and returned home to New York. With some cards of his own and some dried beans, he introduced the game to friends. One woman, seeing she had won, got so excited, she couldn’t remember to yell “Beano” and yelled “Bingo” instead. In an interview years later, Lowe recalled that moment: “I cannot describe the sense of elation which that girl’s cry brought to me, all I could think of was that I was going to come out with this game and I was going to call it Bingo.”

So while I don’t (yet) own a Lowe Bingo game, I’m a bit closer to justifying that future purchase.

It will be another “space” filled on my checklist of Bookshelf Of Games games — so when I do get them all, I’ll not only be a fulfilled (and rationalizing) collector, but I’ll have achieved a full-card Bingo. And that’s satisfying on so many levels for this vintage game nerd.

Vintage Lowe's Bookshelf Of Games List