Pavilion "To Sink Ships" Strategy Game

What this item is

"To Sink Ships" is a Battleship-style strategy game published under the Pavilion brand and distributed through Toys "R" Us across several European markets. Two players place ships on pegboards and take turns guessing coordinates to sink the other side's fleet — the same core mechanic as Hasbro's Battleship, under different branding and licensing.

This example is factory sealed in its original shrink wrap, with the box art doubling as both faces: one side carries the illustrated game photo and title treatment alone, the other adds a printed safety/regulatory panel with Toys "R" Us branding, licensing text, a barcode and a CE mark.

Box identification

Both faces share the same diagonal red/yellow/blue illustration of two angled pegboards (one red, one blue) with ships and pegs in play, and the Pavilion logo (a stylised column crest) top left. The title stack runs in five languages, each on its own coloured tab: "To Sink Ships / game of strategy" (English), "Bataille Navale / jeu de stratégie" (French), "Schiffe Versenken / strategiespiel" (German), "Hundir los Barcos / juego de estrategia" (Spanish), and "Combate Naval / jogo de estratégia" (Portuguese). A red "6+" age badge sits in the top right corner on both faces.

Safety and distribution panel

The other face carries a printed panel in the bottom right with the Toys "R" Us logo, "Customer Information" text in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese, a CE mark, a recycling symbol, and a small-parts choking-hazard icon. Licensing text reads "Marks Licensed by © 1998, 2000 Geoffrey, Inc." with a separate Canadian licensing line for Toys "R" Us (Canada) Ltd, and states the game was made in Spain (given in five languages). Importer/distributor addresses are listed for the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Austria, consistent with the wide European distribution the five-language box itself suggests.

Marks on file

The 1998/2000 dual-dated licensing line is the clearest dating anchor on the box itself — consistent with the collector's note below that this sealed copy likely sits among the earlier Toys "R" Us print runs rather than a later reissue, though that hasn't been independently cross-checked against a dated catalogue or other sealed copies yet.

Collector's notes

The following is recorded as the collector's own assessment, not an independently verified finding — flagged here rather than folded into Identification or Packaging above, in line with points 5 and 6 of the verification standard still being open.

• Factory sealed condition, which trades verified completeness for a stronger unopened/collector-grade claim.
• Pavilion branding, described as less common in the market than the equivalent Hasbro Battleship.
• Early Toys "R" Us exclusive/distribution, tied to a retailer that no longer exists.
• A complete multilingual European edition (five languages on the box, as confirmed under Packaging above).
• Dual appeal as both a board game collectable and Toys "R" Us retail memorabilia.

Worth noting: Toys "R" Us no longer trading is nostalgic context rather than the main driver of desirability on this reading — the combination of sealed condition, less-common branding and multilingual completeness is doing more of the work.

Why this is marked pending

This copy is factory sealed, which is part of its value — but it also means the contents can't be checked against a parts list (pegboards, pegs, ship pieces, rules sheet in each language) without breaking the seal. Completeness is left pending by design here rather than guessed at from the box photography alone; a future opened or loose-parts example would let this be confirmed without affecting this sealed copy's own record.

Sources

• Primary: one factory-sealed Pavilion "To Sink Ships" box, photographed on both faces and transcribed directly for this entry, August 2026.
• Rarity and Collectability notes supplied by the collector; not yet independently cross-checked against dated catalogues, other sealed copies, or secondary sources.