Pick-up sticks
table game played with special sticks
Pick-up sticks, pick-a-stick, jackstraws, jack straws, spillikins, spellicans, or fiddlesticks is a game of physical and mental skill in which a bundle of sticks, between 8 and 20 centimeters long, is dropped as a loose bunch onto a table top into a random pile. Each player, in turn, tries to remove a stick from the pile without disturbing any of the others. The object of the game is to pick up the most sticks or to score the most points based on the color of the sticks.
History
The origin of the game of pick-up sticks is disputed, but it is believed to have developed from the yarrow stalks used for divination with the Chinese I Ching. An English-language reference to a "game at spilakees" dates from 1734.
The game became popular in the 1800s in Germany, the United Kingdom (where it was played at least as early as 1845 at Windsor Castle), and the United States. A particularly popular version of the game during the 1930s-50s, 456 Pickup Sticks, was manufactured by O. Schoenhut Inc, an offshoot of the US-based Schoenhut Piano Company.
In the 1800s, pick-up sticks were generally made from ivory or bone; modern sticks may be made of almost any material, such as wood, bamboo, straw, reed, rush, yarrow, or plastics.
The indigenous Haida nation in North America play a game similar to pick-up sticks with sticks made of plain maple wood decorated with abalone shell and copper.
Play
In a game of pick-up sticks, there are typically 30 or more sticks and at least two players.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1969196. The Library of Congress control number is sh85069207. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1734 and 1845.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pick-up sticks” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.