Shove ha'penny Jaques

	Shove ha'penny	?year	Jaques London
	First produced	19th century	Players	2	Age(s)

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1 x hardwood playing board
5 x half-penny pieces
1 x rules sheet

The board is marked into 9 equal divisions known as beds, with an area for scoring on each side.

Play is made by shoving 5 coins with the ball of the thumb from the base edge into the beds. Score once all your coins have been played and only score those coins which stop clearly within the parallel lines of a bed.

Aim to score 3 times per bed in any order. Once you fill a bed by scoring 3 times, if your coin lands there again, the point is given to your opponent. However, the final point to complete a game must be from your own shove.

Cannoning or striking of coins one against the other is permitted and can be developed to a skill.

Rules for play of the coins, if;
- at rest or overlapping the end boundary are in play
- partly or wholly over the side lines (chalking lines) are dead
- fail to reach the first base line, can be taken again
- left in the base area after a cannon shot are deemed played.

Some game boards have painted lines to mark the beds. The more expensive boards have rails embedded in the lines which can be lifted out of the slots in order to determine whether or not a coin is completely within a bed or not. If the coin moves, it does not score. In this edition of the game, there are grooves along the lines of each bed wide enough and deep enough to allow the edge of a coin to be rolled along, again to determine whether a coin is wholly within a bed or not.

Shove ha’penny originates from around 1840 and would originally have been played on any flat surface that could have lines inscribed on it. The official board these days should be made of slate or hardwood with indented lines defining the beds. The game is derived from Shovel board, versions of which were played in taverns as early as the 15th century, a particularly British pastime.