Shell Oil Make Money (1966)

Make Money (1966)

Above: Typical Make Money game piece from
the original (1966) game.

The original MAKE MONEY game was a promotional game issued by the Shell Oil Company in England in 1966. It was repeated again by Shell Oil - in a different format - in 1984 and again in 1994. This was a collect-and-win game. The original game consisted of an envelope (about 6.25" x 3.5") given to customers each time they visited a participating Shell gas station in England. The envelopes contain a game piece - a slip of paper (about 3" x 2.75") with the image of one-half of a British pound amount, either 10 shillings, £1, £10 or £100. The goal was to collect game pieces and try to match two halves of the same denomination in which case the player won that amount.

The game was launched on July 23, 1966, and was well-received by British drivers. This was no surprise because Shell had great success with their 'Americana' game in the United States the year before (which you can see here) and the 'Make Money' game was nearly identical. Both games were produced by Glendinning Enterprises, Inc. The Make Money game pieces were printed in the U. S. and shipped to Shell in England.

There were only eight different game pieces in this game; four were common and four were the prize-winning matching halves.

Because British law prohibited games of chance, Shell Oil needed to inject a skill element into the game. In order to receive a prize, players needed to answer a 'skill question.' The skill question was printed on the game pieces and the average ten-year-old could answer it. This, apparently, satisfied the legal requirement that it not be a game of chance (which it was) but rather a game of skill (which it was not). It is both amusing and frightening to see how powerful the oil industry is - that Shell could get away with this ploy which blatently flies in the face of the law.

Above: Front and back of a 'MAKE MONEY' game envelope which contains a game piece.

Above: Front and back of a 'MAKE MONEY' game piece.

Above: Close-up of the rules printed on the back of each 'MAKE MONEY'
game piece. Winners had to complete a skill test by determining ten
words that could be made from the letters in the name GEOFFREY CHAUCER,
which is not hard considering I came up with 100 words (on the right).
Amusingly, one of the words is 'Farce.'

Accrue	Ache	Acre	Agree	Arch
Archer	Argue	Auger	Cache	Cafe
Cage	Care	Cargo	Carry	Chaff
Char	Charge	Charger	Cheer	Cheery
Cherry	Chore	Chug	Coffee	Coffer
Core	Couch	Cough	Courage	Crag
Crouch	Cuff	Cure	Curry	Each
Face	Farce	Fare	Fear	Ferry
Foray	Force	Fore	Forge	Forger
Four	Fray	Free	Frog	Furry
Gaff	Gaffe	Gear	Ghee	Gore
Gorge	Gory	Gray	Grace	Grey
Grouch	Hare	Hear	Here	Hero
Hoary	Hour	Huffy	Huge	Hurray
Hurry	Occur	Offer	Orca	Orgy
Ouch	Race	Racer	Racy	Rage
Rare	Reach	Rear	Recharge	Recur
Reface	Refer	Refuge	Refugee	Roach
Roar	Rouge	Rough	Rougher	Roughy
Urge	Year	Yoga	Your	Yucca

Above: British newspaper ad from 1966.

Use your back button or Click here to return to the main game page.