![]() ![]() In addition, in Spring 1936, Parker placed trade ads, advertising how they were now licensing their two patents to Easy Money (through Milton Bradley) and Finance (through the Finance Game Company). (Chance cards were introduced as early as the 1906 version of The Landlord’s Game.) Darrow could not credibly claim to have added Community Chest cards to the game. A connection with Parker Brothers would undermine that story, and therefore, undermine the Monopoly patent.įortune has both Chance and Community Chest cards as these were also present in the 1932 version of Finance. Knapp’s Finance had been on the market since 1932, more or less at the same time, or even before, Charles Darrow had claimed he invented Monopoly. While it is not clear why they did it this way, they may have wanted to distance themselves from the Knapp transaction for various reasons. During 1936, Parker Brothers offered a revised version of Finance through a dummy, the Finance Game Corporation, based out of their New York office. Knapp Electric sold Finance to Parker Brothers in January 1936. (In 1937, perhaps in response to this, Milton Bradley issued the game Carnival, which was based on the earlier, expired first Landlord’s Game patent.) Milton Bradley had to negotiate changes to their lookalike Easy Money game so Parker Brothers would grant them a license. (See our earlier post Thun Monopoly, May 10, 2017.)Īs things played out, Parker Brothers bought the second Landlord’s patent, which set other things into motion. But Hotels were not a Darrow innovation– they were introduced to Monopoly some years earlier by the Thuns in their version. Fortune does not have any, using 40 Houses instead. ![]() Parker Brothers appreciated their importance to Monopoly’s success, and therefore, Fortune had different cartoons of its own. Second, there was Darrow’s board design and the iconic cartoonlike illustrations he created. As an alternative, Fortune is an excellent, strong choice. While he did not create the game Monopoly, Darrow was certainly the first to try marketing it on a wide scale. Comparing the two games, we can see just what it is that Parker thought was Darrow’s intellectual property.įirst there is the name. If Parker had to suddenly cut Darrow out of the picture, they would have a game they could sell to take its place. The sole purpose of Fortune, then, was to put a property trading game on the market that owed nothing to Charles Darrow and his supposed improvements to Monopoly. She filed her patents in order to receive proper credit for her inventions, not money.įor what is a patent, if not a legalized monopoly? And Henry George was opposed to monopolies. Phillips could certainly have demanded a royalty on each Monopoly game sold– a royalty that Parker was already paying to Charles Darrow, who had falsely claimed to be the “inventor.” She did not do so, as this would have violated her Georgist beliefs. She eventually sold her patent to Parker Brothers in November 1935, after meeting with George S. Phillips, who had also been contacted by both Milton Bradley (makers of Easy Money) and Knapp Electric (Finance). So, to “monopolize” Monopoly, they would need to obtain the rights to her patent. Shortly after filing this patent (eventually issued as #2026082 on December 31, 1935), Parker was informed by the US Patent Office that this would be considered as an improvement of the second Landlord’s Game patent #1509312, issued to Elizabeth Magie Phillips in 1924. The earliest version of Fortune says, “Patent Pending.” Why did Parker introduce a new Monopoly clone, just a few months after they took over Monopoly from Charles Darrow? Fortune was introduced after the Monopoly patent was filed on August 31, 1935. The short-lived 1935 Parker Brothers game Fortune is a rare and historically important early Monopoly variant, as it was briefly an essential piece in a chess game over control of property trading games, which were quickly becoming a national craze. ![]()
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