Here is an interesting item for all of you sunken treasure enthusiasts. In this game, you can actually hunt for sunken treasure without getting a lease. No need to worry about investors or having a boat to maintain. No weather problems. You can search anytime, rain or shine. Best of all, you can keep everything you find! Sound too fantastic? Well, you can do all these things with this Parker Brothers Sunken Treasure board game. Of course, your “treasure” consists of small wooden blocks representing gold bricks which are to be recovered using a tiny paper boat and wooden divers. Like so many modern-day salvage operations there are variables that cannot be controlled. Rather than real variables, like storms and rough sea conditions, the variables in this game consist of a “spinner” that must be used by the participants. Wherever the arrow points (after spinning) determines how fast you get to the “treasure” and how quickly you get back to the ship with the “treasure”.
Created during the heyday of board games in 1948, this game is actually quite fun and does take some skill. The rules are complicated (much like modern-day salvaging operations) and there is no guarantee that you will get anything for your efforts (again, like modern-day salvaging operations). I have included several images of this board game to give you a flavor of what is involved. Like so many other board games of that era, the pieces are small and inexpensive to produce. It is likely that the actual cost to produce this game amounted to literal pennies. Some cardboard and chips of wood were all that was needed here. I imagine that it was a very profitable venture for Parker Brothers.
If you read the rules you can figure out pretty much what was involved in actually playing the game. Considering how sophisticated today’s games ( i.e. video ) are today, this particular board game would be laughable by current youth standards. But there was a time when this game was exciting. To most of us, it conjures up memories of a simpler time when board games were a family affair and played on special occasions, like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Remember Monopoly and Cooties?
Ben Costello
President, 1715 Fleet Society
