American Darts Blog

Belgian Darts - Vogelpiks - Wooden Darts

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• Author: admin
• December 3, 2007
• Category: General

I’ve surfed the net looking at various dart sites long enough that when I come across something totally new, it makes my day.  And, that happened just the other night. 

I’m aware of several different variations of the wooden dart/wood board dart game pairing.  For instance, there’s DartBall and the previously mentioned Troy darts. 

I recently found a new one (new to me that is), and it seems like the European version of American darts.

It’s called “Vogelpiks”, and it’s a dart game from Belgium.

Vogelpik “Darts”:
The darts are very similar to american darts in that they are hand-crafted from wood, use feather flights, have a steel tip and a lead weight. They use several woods: cherry, walnut, and birch. The flights come in different styles as well. They can be rounded or snipped like a darto/apex dart.

Vogelpik Board:
The board is made from . . . you guessed it . . . the endgrain pieces of basswood. It the same material as our American style wooden tournament boards. The layout on the board is insanely simple. There is a “bullseye”, or what we’d call the cork in the center of the board. It’s surrounded by 6 circlular bands or red/white/black. Here’s a pict:

The board comes in two sizes, 9 inch and 7 inch. They both have the same amount of rings, so it just looks as though the 7″ board is harder to score on.

Rules and Gameplay:
First, the distances for hanging the board, and the throw line:
Hang the Board with the cork 62 inches above the floor. That’s a mere 1 inch shorter than an American board, compared to a pub board that is mounted 68 inches above the floor.

The Throw Line should be 72 inches from the front of the board. That’s awefully short compared to other dart games. It comes in at 6 ft, compared to over 7 feet for both American and English darts.

Now, on to the gameplay.

• Players throw four darts per turn at the center of the dartboard.
• Each player gets five turns per game.
• Toe the line, stepping over the line results in a loss of score for that dart.
• Players wait until the score is called to remove darts. If they fail to do so, there is no recourse for an incorrectly called score.
• If the game ends in a tie, players shoot extra rounds of four darts each to break the tie.

Scoring:
The scoring is simple. Each ring has an associated point value.

• The cork/bullseye is worth 50 pts.
• The red ring that surrounds it is worth 25 pts.
• The white ring surrounding that is worth 20 pts.
• The black ring scores 15 pts.
• The outer white ring scores 10 pts.
• The outermost red ring scores 5 pts.

History of Vogelpiks:
“It was very popular in Flanders around the time of 1792, and seems to have originated from the archery skills of the Middle Ages. “VOGELPIK” is the early version of the modern game of Belgian darts. It consisted of a stuffed bird hung by a wire from the ceiling, and in its bill a needle in the horizontal position was attached. The player would balance the wire and try to spear a wooden board that was hung on the wall.”

I read that and re-read that, and I still can’t envision it all. I do think that it adds some background to why there’d be a picture of a Vogelpik board hanging inside a bird cage on the internet though.

For a family background and some history on how the game of Vogelpiks landed on the shores of the U.S., visit Belgian Dart History. Apparently, Arthur & James VanHoutteghem are the only makers of Vogelpiks in the United States today. So really, each dart made is a hand-crafted art work that carries three generations of tradition with it.

I think it’s great to find wooden darts making their way to the States in another form.

Resources:
Standard Target and Dart Co.
Vogelpiks.com

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