As promised, here are the Jack Hood darts I picked up a few weeks ago.

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Have no idea what these are made of, its not brass or tungsten.

They seem to have J. R. HOOD stamped on them, I can't find any info if Jacks middle name started with an "R", anyone know ??

Is it robin?

Now that would be funny !

LOL it would, I hope it is Robin.

They do look strange to me though Stuart, I just cant say if they are genuine or not, they look kind of home made? Maybe Patrick Chaplin might know?

I know what you mean grip, but i cant think why someone would go to all the effort, i'd love to know if the real jack had a middle name that started with an "R", if he did then i'd say they would be real as i can't find anything online.

I'd bet these started off as a smooth dart and someone over the years has done a hack job on them and added the grooves.

Will email mr chaplin and see if he has any ideas, we need columbo on the case !!

does pat chaplin post on here ? I cant think why he wouldn't, out of all the sites out there this is one of the very best for people who love the sport and the history

I dont think he really has time to get into forums he is such a busy guy really.

But wont hurt to ask him.

I know he is called J R Hood but I dont know what the R stands for.

I have a book which has him down as 1931-32 News of The World Winner J.R. Hood, Hood's Dart Boards, Bow, London. So I guess he may have had his own business making boards and darts.

Ah thats good, i cant seem to find anything online regarding the "r" , will drop him an email and point him to this thread, would be great to hear his thoughts

I have just sent Patrick an Email so hopefully if he has time he can drop by and let us know what he thinks.

Nice!

Afternoon all,

Patrick Chapman kindly got back to me, his response is as follows -

Quote :

Hi Stuart,

Thanks for your e-mails.

Sorry for the delay in replying. I had some important deadlines to meet and
then went on holiday.

When I was undertaking research for my PhD I learned a great deal about Jack
Hood and much of the information is included in my book DARTS IN ENGLAND
1900-1939 - A SOCIAL HISTORY which was published in 2009 and comes out in
paperback this coming November.

Basically Hood lived in the East End of London in the early 1920s and ran a
company, initially at his home, a former pub in Bow Common Lane, Bow, from
which he sold ice cream and hired out bicycles. He became involved with
darts by accident; coming up with the idea when he saw segments of a cake
his wife had baked.

He then began making wooden (elm) dartboards and in 1925 turned his
attention to making darts too. His company was in constant competition with
NODOR who were also based in the East End, at Stratford. Hood was born in
1888 and died in 1951 but his company continued to produce darts and boards
before closing in the early 1960s.

There is no link with the 'R' in his name to Robin Hood. The 'R' stands for
Robert. I have seen Hood's darts only bearing the name 'JACK HOOD' not 'JACK
R. HOOD' but this does not mean to say that the latter is not genuine. I'd
guess that it is a little later than the 'JACK HOOD' sets.

I've not heard of TORPAL DARTS. I have no record of Jack Hood's darts ever
being re-branded. Perhaps you could send me scans of the TORPAL darts and
your Jack H. darts and I'll run a story in a future issue of my monthly DR.
DARTS' NEWSLETTER and see if anyone of my subscribers recognise the name or
can help in any way.

Having just returned from holiday I haven't checked the link you gave me but
will do so shortly and come back to you.

In the meantime, I hope this response helps.

Best wishes,

Patrick

Dr. Patrick Chaplin
Author and Darts Historian
www.patrickchaplin.com

I have sent him a more detailed email containing links to the site and photos of both mine and grips darts (hope you don't mind grip), and also the torpal darts to see what he makes of them.

I will be buying his book eventually and cant wait to read it

Thanks for that info Patrick!

getagrip wrote:

I will be buying his book eventually and cant wait to read it

Thanks for that info Patrick!

Grip, Patrick would like to use our photos in his news letter, are you Ok with him using the photos of your jack hoods?

No problem at all with me

I can email my pics Patrick or if you just want to copy the ones already here then thats fine too.

getagrip wrote:

No problem at all with me

Excellent, I will let him know.

I have another follow email from Patrick I will post in a sec.

I sent him the one's from your flicker page (they will be spot on mate).

Patrick's follow up -

Quote :

Hi Stuart,

The photos are excellent. Thanks.

What amazes me is that the JH darts appear to be 'reversible'. That is that
the point can be removed and presumably turned so that the point is within
the barrel or reversed and inserted into the stem. This meant that the darts
could be placed in your top pocket without fear of the point damaging your
clothes.

Correct me if I am wrong...

By the way, I think one of your forum members is right. The J.R. Hood darts
have been customised by the addition of grips. I also think that the Hood
darts cases/boxes (usually made out of alluminium or some other light
metal)always bore the name JACK HOOD whilst his darts were engraved
'J.R.HOOD' as per your example. As I said earlier, I don't recall boxes
bearing the legend JACK R. HOOD; merely JACK HOOD.

And yes it's true Jack did win the NoW trophy in the 1931/32 season although
at that time it was restricted to the Metropolitan Area of London. Jack beat
George Branch, a tough, experienced player from Tottenham. Jack played out
of his own factory (most competitors played out of pubs). There is no doubt
that Jack was a great player. His life was cut short in 1951 when he died of
a heart attack.

If you would like me to add you to the subscribers list for DR. DARTS'
NEWSLETTER just let me know. If you enjoy it perhaps you can encourage other
DARTS NUTZ forum members to join.

Best wishes,

Patrick

Great, is there in pics of Jack Hood anywhere?

Good question Grip, I've not seen any, I will ask the question.

Also, If anyone would like to receive Patrick's news letter (which hopefully will feature this thread if we are lucky) then please PM me and I will give you his email (you can then ping him an email and ask to be added), I don't want to post his email address on here in case he gets spam from it.

I'm already signed up to the newsletter and think its great!

I'm signed up as well - excellent reading and well worth subscribing to if you aren't already

I have Patricks book Darts In England 1900-39 (very good book by the way) and there is a picture of Jack Hood in there supervising the production of a dartboard.(page 155). Perhaps I could scan it and post it if you like. I saw your darts on ebay and remember discussing with Grip about if they were real or not. At the time there were to many shading things going on with some ebay sellers so I decided to pass. To me it looks like somebody just carved them up. If only darts could talk. There would be many interesting stories.

wow really good stuff here mates. Love it.

Nice one Mark, if you can scan it I would love to see it!

Grip - I will scan the pages and email them to you. Maybe you can put them up for eveyone to see.

I got them, just not sure if Patrick will be happy for me to post them, might email him first to check.

If he says it's okay it was my idea. If he says no. It was your idea.

dartbord wrote:

If he says it's okay it was my idea. If he says no. It was your idea.

LOL!

dartbord wrote:

I have Patricks book Darts In England 1900-39 (very good book by the way) and there is a picture of Jack Hood in there supervising the production of a dartboard.(page 155). Perhaps I could scan it and post it if you like. I saw your darts on ebay and remember discussing with Grip about if they were real or not. At the time there were to many shading things going on with some ebay sellers so I decided to pass. To me it looks like somebody just carved them up. If only darts could talk. There would be many interesting stories.

Yep, that seems to be the case, it's taken a fair amount of work to find out if they are real (which they seem to be), just that someone down the line has added their own personal grip to them.

According to Patrick, Jacks darts were only made with his name engraved/pressed on them.

This probably means the ones grip used to own were actually 'Torpal Darts' misplaced in an Original Jack Hood case (a case I'd love to own!!) as I have the original Boxed set of Torpals, these apparently had no affiliation with Jack so we can kinda discount them as ever being re-branded as we possibly suspected earlier in the thread.

Has been excellent detective work on here from Grip and Patrick, think we have 'cracked it'.

This is exactly why I love collecting vintage darts, We have learned some great little bits of history and solved the mystery, think we need to invest in a mystery van !! lol

I do have our next case/mission if anyone cares to take the case !!

Sounds like it is solved, its a pity more records were not kept of these things, but somewhere they must have advertised them I would have thought? Maybe one of those big libraries may have info on them.

Ok were ready for the next case Stuart!

Next case - http://www.dartsnutz.com/t1834-my-holy-grail-brass-pen-dart

I really want to find out about these now, 'Darboard' has a complete piece as does Patrick Chaplin, no one seems to be able to find out when these were made or who made them.

They are now located right across the globe, would be fantastic to find out some info on them.

This is going to be a tough case !