Vintage Capitalist Amusements

Some business owners are collecting these fun artifacts of America’s financial history. (Hint: Do not pass go.)

Boardwalk, Park Place, and Pennsylvania Avenue were some of Paul Fink''s favorite haunts as a child. It was the time he spent playing games like Monopoly, he says, that made him want to run a business. Now Fink owns Club Getaway, a 100-employee outdoor sporting resort in bucolic Kent, Conn., and is part of a small group of business owners who collect antique financial board games. He has about 50 from before World War II, including a 1933 version of Monopoly that he says is worth about $3,000.

That game is an exception; the value of most early financial games is strictly historic and artistic. Created for adults and children to mirror the dynamics of commerce and industrialism at the turn of the 20th century, early finance games were both entertainment and instruction for the middle class. The brilliantly chromolithographed boards were often embellished with capitalist symbolism as well as caricatures of magnates, speculators, and the bestial mascots of wealth. These days, collectors like Fink find them by patiently perusing eBay, antique shops, auction houses, flea markets, humble yard sales, and game conventions like the annual one held by the Association of Game and Puzzle Collectors.

All of the games seen here are part of the New-York Historical Society's Liman collection of board and table games, which will be on exhibit next month at the Henry Flagler Museum in Palm Beach, Fla.

Commerce

J. Ottman Lithograph Co., ca. 1900
Estimated value: $50

Commerce players eschew the polite taking of turns; instead they shout down adversaries to win commodities cards. The box cover features a beautiful chromolithographed image of a demure woman who is presumably preparing to yell loudest.

The Game of Playing Department Store

McLoughlin Brothers, 1898
Estimated value: $600—$700

The goal of this game is to find the best deals on a variety of merchandise. To a modern player, though, all of the turn-of-the-century goods look bargain-basement: $2.50 for shoes, $1 for a cooking range, $5 for a gold watch and chain, and 50 cents for a leather handbag.

Bulls and Bears: The Great Wall Street Game

McLoughlin Brothers, 1883
Estimated value: $10,000—$12,000

One of the rarest antique financial games, this one is based on the oscillations of the stock market. On the board, moths drawn to flames are sketched above alternating "rise and "fall spaces near caricatures of tycoons Jay Gould and William Henry Vanderbilt.

Games of Monopolist, Mariner's Compass, and Ten Up

McLoughlin Brothers, 1885
Estimated value: $600—$800

A spider, centered in a perilous web of bankruptcy and ruin, is Monopolist's spinner. Players representing farmers, merchants, scientists, mechanics, and monopolists traverse the board's emblematic squares—a dollar space signifies capital—with the ultimate goal of breaking monopolies and then becoming monopolists themselves.

PIT: Exciting Fun for Everyone

Parker Brothers, 1919
Estimated value: $10

In a game meant to mimic the American Corn Exchange, players trade commodities cards— barley, corn, oats, and wheat—in an attempt to corner the market. Illustrated bull and bear cards can lower or raise scores. This popular game was manufactured in large quantities.

Yankee Pedlar or What Do You Buy

John McLoughlin, ca. 1850
Estimated value: $275

The object of this early game is to buy the most valuable goods using 11 vendor cards and 60 merchandise cards. From the tavern keeper, one might buy a "cup of muddy coffee, and from the huckster, a "crookneck squash. The game itself is a hand- colored monochrome print that was labor-intensive and costly to produce.