Commerce (1900)

This game is from 1900 and was published by the J. Ottmann Litho Company of New York.

The directions say that Commerce is "the most amusing game on the market"

The game is comprised of a deck of cards with 8 suits
(Pork, Sugar, Cotton, Corn, Coffee, Oats, Flour and Butter) of 6 cards in each suit, making 48 cards in all.

After shuffling the cards, deal each player 6 cards. Each player sorts the cards that they have and then decides which suit they will try to corner.

The object of the game is to obtain all of the cards of one suit by trading with other players.

To play you take from your hand a card or cards of similar suite and holding them up call "Trade 2 or trade 3. All players do that at the same time so there is lots of yelling going on. Sorta like what happens on the New York Stock Exchange. People make trades of cards. So you could trade 2 with someone else then find that the 2 that you receive match a card or two that you already have in your hand and now you might try and trade 3 for 3. When the first player succeeds in getting all of the cards in a suit the player calls "corner" shows the cards to everyone else. First player to get 3 corners wins!