Touche Coule | The Vintage Toy Advertiser

Battleship / Bataille Navale France. 1969.

“You sank my battleship!”

Battleship, or Battleships, is a two-player game in which you guess the location of your opponent’s fleet of ships on a concealed numbered and lettered grid. The aim is to destroy your opponent’s fleet before your own fleet is destroyed. Battleship can be dated back to World War I when it was a home-made pen and paper game. In later years numerous companies published printed pad-and-pencil versions, then in 1967 the Milton Bradley company (MB Games) produced a plastic board and peg version with miniature ships. Later incarnations by MB included electronic, speaking, and player vs computer versions.

Battleships. UK. 1983.

Torpedo Run / Opération Torpilles and Touché Coulé Computer / Electronic Battleship. 1988. France.

Touché Coulé / Battleship traditional and elctronic. 1995. France.

Bataille Navale Electronique Parlante / Electronic Speaking Battleship. 1995. France.

Combat Naval. 1995. France.

ETS DE NEUTER is a French toy distributor that has been in operation for more than 60 years. The following scans are from its 1995 Christmas trade catalogue and feature many of the big name toy and game brands. The front cover has a wintry, foresty, Christmas wonderland feel to it, while the back cover shows a range of cool merchandise for popular 90s film The Lion King. In between these covers are more than 80 pages of well-presented toy photos and dioramas, making this catalogue a joy to look through.

As well as toys and games, ETS De Neuter distributed household, sports, leisure and electrical goods, which the catalogue also features – but we’ll save those goodies for another time. For now, sit back and enjoy these cool 90s toys. Click if you need to go bigger. Thanks for looking.