Episode 2 of 4

Distribution Rights Sale

When: 1890 (approximate)
Where: United States
Part of: First commercial release of the Ouija board by Elijah Bond

Bond sold the US distribution rights for the board to the Kennard Novelty Company.

Charles Kennard, founder of the Kennard Novelty Company, claimed to have invented the board with Bond. Bond transferred the distribution rights to Kennard's company, facilitating the commercial marketing of the talking board.

Sources

Elijah Bond Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-30
Ouija Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-01

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.