Question: Which of these board games was released earlier: Lord of the Rings or Finance?
Context: Francis Tresham is a United Kingdom-based board game designer who has been producing board games since the early 1970s.  Tresham founded and ran games company Hartland Trefoil (founded 1971), a company well known for its "Civilization" board game, until its sale to MicroProse in 1997.  His "1829" game was the first of the "18xx" board game series and some of his board games have inspired Sid Meier computer games such as "Railroad Tycoon". Robert Charles Bell (1917–2002) was the author of several books on board games, most importantly "Board and Table Games 1 & 2" (reprinted as "Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations").  This work won the Premier Award of the Doctors' Hobbies Exhibition, London.  He was instrumental in popularizing traditional games, and is acknowledged as one of 11 "principal sources" in David Parlett's "The Oxford History of Board Games". Finance, or The Fascinating Game of Finance or Finance and Fortune, is a board game originally released in 1932.  The game is based on "The Landlord's Game" in the movement of pieces around the board, the use of cards, properties that can be purchased, and houses that can be erected on them.  The game also has railroads, however these may not be purchased.  The game is actually a predecessor to "Monopoly". Lord of the Rings is a board game based on the high fantasy trilogy "The Lord of the Rings" by J. R. R. Tolkien.  Published in 2000 by Kosmos in Germany, Wizards of the Coast in the U.S., and Parker Brothers in the U.K., the game is designed by Reiner Knizia and features artwork by illustrator John Howe.  It won a Spiel des Jahres special award for "best use of literature in a game" and in 2004 it won the Games Magazine Games 100 Honor in the Family Strategy category.  A slightly revised version was later published by Fantasy Flight Games. This page explains commonly used terms in board games in alphabetical order.  For a list of board games, see List of board games.  For terms specific to chess, see Glossary of chess.  For terms related to chess problems, see Glossary of chess problems. Bear games is a category of board games of which many have historical roots in the Roman Empire.  They were played in parts of the Empire as far away as Turkey and France and are still played today, especially in Italy.  All of the games are two-player abstract strategy board games.  Normally, the game is played with three hunters and one bear on a patterned board.  It bears similarity to the hunt games such as the Fox games, Rimau-rimau, and Bagha-Chall, however, there are no captures involved.  The three hunters are trying to hem in the bear, and block its movements. TAMSK is the second board game in the "GIPF" Project of six abstract strategy games, and was published in 1998.  Players move sand hourglass timers and drop plastic rings around spaces on a hexagonal board in an attempt to limit their opponent's moves.  Each player starts the game with 32 rings, and the player with the fewest remaining rings at the end of the game is the winner.  The game is unique among the "GIPF" Project games in having time as a central game component, and the manner in which time is used is possibly unique among board games in general. Sophisticated Games is a UK-based developer of board games best known for its series of Lord of the Rings games which are based directly on J. R. R. Tolkien's books.  The company started up in 1998 in Cambridge, UK and is run by ex book publisher Robert Hyde in partnership with Ken Howard and Sophia Hyde. David Parlett (born 1939) is a games scholar, historian, and translator from South London, who has studied both card games and board games. His published works include many popular books on games and the more academic volumes "The Oxford Guide to Card Games" and "The Oxford History of Board Games", both now out of print.  Parlett also invented a number of board games, the most successful of which is Hare and Tortoise (1974).  The German edition was awarded Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year) in 1979. Word board games are those games played on a board as players of the game attempt to construct words that use a scoring system.  The player with the highest score wins the game.  Many if not most board games are also available as software programs and online.  Online word board games can be organized so that the player is playing against other people or the game can be played against an automated program acting as an artificial intelligence.  Players of some word board games organize themselves into associations, clubs, and tournaments.
Answer: Finance