South Korea

Presentation:
version 2000

Presentatie:
versie 2000.

Number of editions: 8

Edition: March 18, 2007

Map of Korea.

Since Korea never stood under the influence of England the Waddingtons Monopoly editions could never have been introduced in this country.

After a long Japanese predominance the country came under American supervision after WW II.
Up till now (2007) Parker Brothers/Hasbro have not (yet?) published their "official" Monopoly editions, but inland manufacturers have made Monopoly-like editions.

Great Game Flags. Edition: Great Game - flags, Kit No- 1,000
Publisher: Elephant - 1991
Dimensions of the box: 21.7 x 15.3 x 3.8 cm
of the soft game board: 29 x 42 cm
The game:
For those who are not Korean, like myself, I would characterize this set as the "Red car and flags"-edition.

At comparing this edition with the next one of the same manufacturer a few remarkable facts can be concluded, as there are:

	Both sets have the same "Kit No- 1,000" reference.
	Although the other set show a large yellow 2 in a red circle on the lid, the Rules in this set show a white 1 in a red circle, reason why I think these editions belongs to a same series.
	Underneath this circle with the 1 it says "KIC-91-004", reason why I assume this set was published in 1991.

The little box contains:

	The double folded game board of soft cardboard. The play-side is directed outwards. The grey back shows, except for much Korean, a table of "How to say it in English and French", like "Can you give me a room for tonight?/Avez-vous une chambre pour la nuit?"
	2 sheets each with 10 "Computer" cards. On the colored front-side is a smiling computer, while the instructions with some illustration are at the grey back.
	There are but 4 small (32x70 mm) yellow rimmed cards of which I cannot guess the purpose.
	The property deeds are on 4 different colored rimmed cards, each containing 6 deeds. The front-side of these cards show the flag and some information of the country, as I can read a surface given in km². The rents are printed in blue on the grey back-sides.
	Another sheet has 4 different colored tokens to be placed in a small plastic feet of the same color. The green section of this sheet has 14 villa's that have to be bent in such a way that the villa stands upright on a foot.
	The last small cardboard contains only 9 pink buildings and 9 lightblue hotels.
	There is one larger paper sheet (51.5x37.5 cm) containing all 120 banknotes (25x65 mm) of "The Bank of Kyungill". The 5 denominations are: 10000 - 50000 - 100000 - 500000 and 1000000.
	The black dice with white pips are in a little plastic bag, together with the 4 feet for the tokens.
	The Rules leaflet is such that the illustrating pictures explain a lot.

All properties are from the Start onwards:

Green: Mexican - Japan - Philippines - Singapore
Blue: China - Belgium - Brazil - Hong Kong
Dark blue: Iran - Columbia - Denmark
Light blue: New Zealand - Swiss
Red: Sweden - England - Turkey
Yellow: America - Germay - Netherlands
Dark pink: Thailand - Malaysia
Orange: Italian - France - Korea

This edition was bought for about € 2.50 in December 1992 in Seoul.

Great Game 2. Edition: Great Game 2 - cities (?),
Publisher: Elephant/Kyoung IL Industr. Co. - 1991
Dimensions of the box: 21.7 x 15.3 x 3.8 cm
of the soft game board: 29 x 42 cm
The game:
I will characterize this set as the "Calling man and typewriter" edition.

This edition is of basically the same design but yet everything is different, since:

	Now the colorgroups of the properties are totally mixed up and since they are in Korean only I cannot enumerate them. The grey back-side of the game board shows Korean text, some calculation chart as well as a kind of Paris' skyline.
	The "Computer"cards are blue now and show a computer on a globe.
	The construction and the colors of the 4 tokens are the same, but the figures are different.
	There are 4 blocks of 10 squares in the same colors as the tokens. I guess they must be placed on the color bar of a property the moment that property is bought by a player. The houses he/she will subsequently build on that property have to been put on that square.
	There are but 56 tiny (14x14 mm) cardboard houses.
	Again the property deeds are on 6 cardboard sheets, but now the rents are shown on the front-side of each deed.
	The Rules leaflet is again carefully edited, while its back-page is used for advertisements of other games.

The only 2 things the same are:

	The black dice with white pips.
	All 5 banknotes of "The Bank of Kyungill".

This edition was bought for about € 2.50 in December 1992 in Seoul.

King of Hotel game 1991. Edition: World Express - King Of Hotel Game
Publisher: ICOM - South Korea - ± 2001
Dimensions of the box: 25.7 x 51 cm
The game:
This set is from the collection of Steve Amato - N.Y.C.

So far this is the first real Parker/Hasbro imitation, not only for the red Monopoly bar, but even for a Korean Mr. Monopoly, although this character seems to be the company's mascot. On the other hand the designers have carefully taken care to not copy the corner spaces,
but they did use the middle of each side for transport means:

	Call Taxi
	Rapid Railroad
	Excursion Ship
	Passenger Plane

Except for the red Go corner, the other 3 are totally different and unexpected:

	one golf course
	a pointing policemen (on the Free Parking space)
	a small island in a blue sea with one palmtree

Another striking difference to the Parker design is the division of the properties in uniformly 2 per colorgroup resulting in 11 groups of (often capital) cities of countries in a same area, illustrated with color pictures of landmarks of the cities. The 2 most expensive streets are from South Korea.
The back side of the solid game board is black.

The properties are from Go onwards:

Tripoli (24 ￦) - Cairo (24 ￦) - Environment Fund (80 ￦) - Bangkok (40 ￦) - Call Taxi (80 ￦) - Singapore (44 ￦) - Star Card - Mexico City (48 ￦) - Brasilia (52 ￦) - Golf - Warsaw (60 ￦) - Copenhagen (64 ￦) - 7 Card - Moscow (68 ￦) - Rapid Railroad (80 ￦) - Berlin (72 ￦) - Star Card - Helsinki (76 ￦) - Stockholm (80 ￦) - Policeman - Peking (88 ￦) - Tokyo (94 ￦) - 7 Card - Rome (100 ￦) - Excursion Ship (80 ￦) - Paris (106 ￦) - Star Card - London (112 ￦) - Ottawa (118 ￦) - Palm Island - Department Store (60 ￦) - Parking Place (60 ￦) - 7 Card - New York (126 ￦) - Passenger Plane (80 ￦) - Washington (132 ￦) - The Red Cross Dues (30 ￦) - Busan (140 ￦) and Seoul (160 ￦).

Go corner, with property deeds, house and hotel. ￦ = Won = the Korean currency.

The innerbox has a black plastic tray with 7 slots for the banker's money and 7 holes for the other attributes. There are 2 stacks of cards: one blue "Star" cards, which we shall consider to be Chance cards and yellow "7" cards, say Community
Chest cards. The commands on these cards are nicely illustrated with funny situations of "Korean Mr.Monopoly".
The property deeds are of the same design as the "usual" ones.
The banknotes are issued by the "Bank of ICOM" and printed in black on colored paper. The 7 denominations are:10000 - 20000 - 50000 - 100000 - 200000 - 500000 and 1000000 ￦.
Both the houses and hotels are made of plastic and have a centric chimney. The houses have roof edges, the hotels don't.

The price of this edition amounted to ￦15,000 (US$ 16.12) in 2006.

Comparing the characters in the red bars (probably standing for "King of Hotel" = the spitting image of Monopoly) of other games made by ICOM all following games must be "King of Hotel" editions, although unfortunately it was never confirmed by the manufacturer.

Deluxe Space Express edition.