ANTIQUE RARE 1843 MANSION OF HAPPINESS GAME - HAND COLORED! 100% COMPLETE !

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For your consideration is this historically important and rare board game called the Mansion of Happiness. This game is 100% Complete! I have seen a few examples of this scarce game come to market over the years but they are always just for the game board and were never as nice as this one nor complete with all the original contents. The game comes with 1) the board with the original attached implements pouch to hold the instructions and pieces. The pouch has a genuine-leather flap that wraps around from the back to the front and tucks under a leather fastener on the front to keep it closed. This leather flap has always been missing on every version I have seen as they tend to become brittle and break off over the years; 2) The original teetotum, or spinner, made of a thick cardboard that slides over a small wooden right. The spinner and rod still fit together perfectly and spins wonderfully; 3) The original instruction 5 page instruction book cover detached but still complete; and 4) all four of the original colored tin playing pieces.This board game was first published in the United States by W. & S. B. Ives publishing company in Salem, Massachusetts on November 24, 1843. Players race about a sixty-six space spiral track depicting virtues and vices with their goal being The Mansion of Happiness at track's end. Instructions upon virtue spaces advance players toward the goal while those upon vice spaces force them to retreat.With the industrialization and urbanization of the United States in the early 19th century, the American middle class experienced an increase in leisure time. One of the earliest children's board games published in America was The Mansion of Happiness (1843) and was based on the Puritan world view that Christian virtue and deeds were assurances of happiness and success in life. Even game mechanics were influenced by the Puritan view. A teetotum, or a top-like spinner, was utilized in the game rather than dice, which were then associated with Satan and gambling. While the Puritan view forbade game playing on the Sabbath, The Mansion of Happiness and similar games with high moral content would have been permitted for children in more liberal households. The Mansion of Happiness is a roll-and-move track board game, and, typical of such games, the object is to be the first player to reach the goal at the end of the board's track, here called The Mansion of Happiness (Heaven). Centrally located on the board, the goal pictures happy women making music and dancing before a house and garden.The game track is populated with virtuous deed spaces like Honesty and Temperance which move players forward to eternal happiness and vices such as cruelty and ingratitude that move players backward to the pillory, the House of Correction, or prison, and thus, further from The Mansion of Happiness. An e xtract from the rules are as follows;" Whoever arrives at Piety, Honesty, Temerance, Gratitude, Prudence, Truth, Sincerity, Humility, Industry, Charity or Humanity is entitled to advance six spaces towards the Mansion of Happiness.Whoever arrives at Audacity must be taken to the water and thoroughly ducked, ie. must lose two turns and there remain until the third, when he may play again.Landing on the Whipping Post, House of Correction, the Pillory and the Stocks send a player's piece back five spaces, unless his piece is sent to one of them for punishment from some other place. landing on Prison or Ruin send the player's piece back to begin life over again from space No.1.Whoever possesses Cruelty must be sent back to Justice.Whoever gets into Idleness must come to Poverty.Whoever becomes a Sabbath Breaker must be taken to the Pillory and there remain until he loses 3 turns.Whoever becomes a Drunkard must be taken to the Whipping Post and whipped and thereremain until he loses 2 turns.Whoever first arrives at 67 - The Mansion of Happiness wins the game - this must be by exact spin. "This offering is for the complete game with all its original contents. This... read more

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