Ping Pong box
Design on the lid of a Ping Pong or Gossima box c. 1901, manufactured by J. Jacques and Son Ltd. Table tennis originated in England at the end of the 19th century as an upper class pastime. The first records of the game come from the early 1880s, when British army officers in India and South Africa used lids from cigar boxes as paddles and rounded corks from wine bottles as balls. It soon found its way back to England where James Gibb, who had returned from the United States with some hollow celluloid balls, began playing indoor tennis at the turn of the century. The new game adopted a variety of names before ping pong - after the sound of the paddle hitting the ball - took hold. English sporting goods manufacturers J.Jacques and Son Ltd registered the name in 1901, the year before E. C. Goode made the significant advance of covering his bat in rubber to impart spin on the ball
Hi-Res image available upon request
