Masterpiece

Masterpiece is a board game by Parker Brothers, now a brand of Hasbro. Players participate in auctions for famous works of art. The original design was by Christian Thee, who tried to sell it to Parker Brothers in 1969. They rejected it, but brought out Masterpiece, a similar game, the following year. It was credited to Jeffrey Breslow of Marvin Glass and Associates and originally published in 1970 by Parker Brothers, and then published again in 1976 and 1996. Thee successfully sued Parker Brothers and was awarded $400,000. The game is now out of print. In this game, players compete with other players to bid on potentially valuable paintings, and negotiate with other players to trade these works of art, build a portfolio, amass money, and win the game. The top value of a painting in the 1970 edition is $1 million, and $10 million in the 1996 edition; however, getting the full value for the painting requires some luck in landing on the right square on the board to sell a painting to the bank. The game utilizes bluffing skills because the players possess asymmetrical information about the value of the paintings they possess. Some pictures are known to their owners to be 'forgeries' with an actual value of zero. These 'forgeries' can, however, be resold to other players or to the bank with the value hidden.