Vigo County Historical Society
Historical Treasure Article
Historic Treasure of the Week -
January 6, 2002
By Jan Buffington
Vigo County Historical Society
Parker Brothers know life’s a game
Children of all ages have had fun playing card games, and two favorites are today’s Historical Treasure. These decks were made by Parker Brothers.
In 1883, 16-year-old George Parker of Salem, Mass., invented a card game he named “Banking,” that his friends in his small club enjoyed playing. The encouraged him to market the game. Not being deterred by rejects from Boston book publishers, George produced 500 decks on his own. By Christmas that year he had sold all but two dozen decks, making a tidy profit of more than $100. He then started inventing and producing new games, which helped convince his older brother Charles to join him. Parker Brothers was born.
By 1890, they had published 29 games and in 1989, their brother Edward joined the firm. They incorporated the company a few years later and in the early 1900s, they branched out to board games and wooden jigsaw puzzles.
They made special decks of cards for many games played with a standard deck of cards. For example, in Old Maid, using a standard deck of cards, the Queen of Spades was the Old Maid card.
George was the game inventor for the company and invented a slew of new games. The company hit the big time in 1935 when the brothers invented Monopoly. One interesting side-light is that this company started the unheard-of practice of advertising their products in newspapers and magazines.
Today’s treasure decks of cards are “The Jolly Game of Old Maid” and “The Famous Automobile Card Game of Touring.” The Old Maid deck is the oldest. It was produced before 1900 as the company had not been incorporated yet and the cards are printed with one color ink. The Touring deck is an “Improved Edition” and was produced by Parker Brothers Inc. They once belonged to Jane and Anne Harriett who grew up to be Jane Harriett Siebenmorgan and Anne Harriett Hubbard. They were donated to the Vigo County Historical Museum by their daughter and niece, Anne Siebenmorgan Henderson.
The decks and other games owned by the Harriett girls are found in the nursery on the second floor of the museum.
The Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley, 1411 S. Sixth St., is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Web site: http://web.indstate.edu/community/vchs.