Bridge Challenger®

Bridge Challenger® playing cards accompanied the hand-held electronic game Bridge Challenger Model BRC manufactured by Fidelity Electronics in the USA during the 1970s & 80s. It was a high quality game packaged in an attaché case for the serious player and these playing cards, manufactured by TDC Inc., were included in the case.

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The box has the legend better living through science. The bar codes on the faces of the cards are so the machine can read the cards. The game also has a voice synthesizer and can speak the card names. Clever stuff.

Above: “Bridge Challenger” playing cards produced for Fidelity Electronics by Trend Development Corporation (TDC) Inc., after 1975. Images courtesy Matt Probert.

Bridge Challenger III

Above: leaflet for Bridge Challenger III. At the time, it was being marketed in the UK by Fidelity Electronics (UK) Ltd of Wallingford, Oxfordshire. Image courtesy Roddy Somerville.

Souvenir of Space Shuttle Kennedy Space Center by TDC Inc. See the Box►

Above: Souvenir of Space Shuttle Kennedy Space Center showing standard courts by TDC Inc., c.1981. The first Space Shuttle launch was in April 1981 so TDC Inc appears to have continued production until this time. Images courtesy Matt Probert.

In 1979 TDC Inc was absorbed by Brown & Bigelow, then owned by Saxon Industries, and incorporated into Hoyle Products►

REFERENCES

Cooper, Michael: TDC Inc.: a 20th century American Playing Card Maker, in The Playing-Card Vol.47 No.4, Apr-Jun 2019, pp208-216  online here►

• Peter Vis►