Sheffield Shares (1989)

A standard Monopoly clone with share holding and price variation, the interest in this game lies in its design and production. Funded entirely by sponsorship from local firms who feature on the board and stocks, lead by the Midland Bank who got their logo on the banknotes, this game was actually produced by Sheffield YMCA with help from the City Council. Sheffield YMCA got the idea from Bergen YMCA, where apparently this style of game was a big hit in Norway, with 200,000 copies sold, the result being that all proceeds from sales went to the charity. The product is very good quality, very professional, with an unusual feature of the game board wrapping around a polystyrene contents box to form the game box like a sleeve, held by Velcro! Very strange, with the cardboard held in hinged sections in strong plastic, but the innovative & modern design works very well and the result is much more interesting than many British games. Still a Monopoly clone though.