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So I am currently editing some questions for 2010 T-Party. In the spirit of my ELVIS thread, does anyone have any recollections or memories of the earlier generation of T-Parties?

When I came to Harvard, the tradition of hosting a tournament called "T-Party" was long dead, but people generally remembered that at some point Harvard used to host such things. So we revived it in 2008 when we needed a name for a new packet-submission tournament we decided to create.

I downloaded 1998 and 1999 T-Party from the Stanford Archives; it seems that the 1999 edition had powers and current events tossups, while the 1998 edition did not. Both were packet submission events.

1998 T-Party featured this exciting tossup:

It is a lute shaped stringed instrument popular in the Middle Ages. It has two to four drone strings sounded by a hand-cranked wheel. The melody is played on the strings by depressing keys. For 10 points, name this instrument that is sometimes confused with the barrel organ.

Answer: _HURDY-GURDY_

I seem to recall reading/mocking a 1995 T-Party set at one point, but I can't find it.

The 1995 T-Party contains gems like

It's among the thinnest of America's major papers, but studies show it's the one whose readers devote the most time daily to it. It's based in New York, but has more subscribers in California, and is in fact printed at 17 plants around the U.S. At 1.8 million copies a day, it has the largest circulation of any U.S. newspaper. FTP, name it.

answer: WALL STREET JOURNAL

No Winterreise clues in that Hurdy-Gurdy tossup? Bummer.

I ran the 1996 T Party and probably reviewed a lot of the packets. I think that was the second event. Yes, there were probably some real winners among the questions.