By popular demand! Our exhibit of vintage aviation-themed board games has been extended for two extras weeks—to Sunday, Jan. 26.
This gives visitors one last chance to see these rare and fragile surviving board games from aviation’s early days, some more than a century old. Many are on loan from the Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education of Portland, Maine.
The exhibit also includes a selection of flight-themed board games marketed throughout the 20th century.
The games provide a window into the growth of aviation over the decades as well as the public’s early fascination with flight. Long before airlines carried any passengers, families were playing board games enabling them to re-enact Charles Lindbergh’s epic non-stop flight across the Atlantic.
“Sometimes history is told in stories and books and photographs,” said Jeff Rapsis, executive director of the Aviation Museum of N.H. “But history can also be told through everyday objects such as these board games, which are a real window into how aviation was perceived by the public.”
Many of the earlier games on display were acquired and preserved by Paul Fink, a noted game enthusiast who passed away in 2012. Fink’s collection of several thousand board games was donated to the Osher Map Library of Portland, Maine, which today oversees the collection.
In addition to the exhibit of vintage aviation-themed board games, the Aviation Museum will keep in place this year’s ‘Holiday Festival of Toy Planes and Model Aircraft,’ which features more than 2,000 model aircraft in all scales and from all eras.
The exhibit also includes several “theme” trees decorated with aviation-related items such as vintage airline travel soaps, playing cards, and air sickness bags.
The Aviation Museum of N.H. is located at 27 Navigator Road, Londonderry, N.H. The museum is open to the public Fridays and Saturdays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m.
