In 1932, The Fascinating Game of Finance (later named to just Finance) was released onto the market by Dan Layman, who had played a variant of The Landlord’s Game.
Finance was remarkably similar to Monopoly, despite being created three years prior to Parker Brother’s Monopoly hitting the shelves.
After being sold for a year in Indianapolis, Indiana through L.S. Ayres, the rights were purchased by Knapp Electric for $200 and would be purchased once again by Parker Brothers in 1935 for $10,000 – Parker Brothers required the rights of the game to strengthen their patent on Monopoly as the two games were very similar.
Before the granting of Monopoly’s patent – US2026082A, Parker Brothers created Fortune – a game very similar to Monopoly but without Charles Darrow’s contributions – using their rights to publish Finance. Apart from losing the traditional Atlantic City property names, Darrow’s illustrations were also dropped. Moreover, Hotels were also removed and instead players were allowed to build up to five houses. As well as spaces being coloured – groups were allocated symbols. Prices, rent values and house costs remain similar to Monopoly. Even Chance and Community Chest cards remain.
Only 10,000 editions were produced as the Monopoly patent was later granted and this ‘insurance policy’ of Fortune was no longer required. The game once reproduced later as Finance and Fortune to ensure the Fortune trademark remained value and later Finance once again as Parker Brothers used the Fortune name for their new Marble game. The game of Finance, Fortune or Finance and Fortune was discontinued after 1962.
Images of Fortune taken from BoardGameGeek
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