Old Tour de France game, that can challenge this other game about being "the oldest game named after the Tour de France". Included in the game box I found a bill (see below), according to which this copy of the game was sold in 1935. This tells us that the game is no later than that, but of course it must have been in the store for some years.

The game features the course of the Tour de France of 1924, which was the last of the classic 15-stage Tour (15 stages were common since 1910, the number of stages increased to 18 in 1925, decreased to 17 in 1926, and increased to 24 in 1927. It has remained over 20 ever since, except in 1939).

Of course this does not prove that the game is from 1924: it just proves that it is not from before. However, my guess is that the game was designed in 1924 or not much later, even if I cannot really say when it was released to the public.

There is another version of this game, a little smaller and with somewhat simpler rules, which I have finally been able to add to this collection (thanks, Marc!). Though it is basically the same game, there are some differences between both versions which (after some thought) make me treat it as a different game.

 

 

The game is quite big: the board is 62 x 52 cm, while the box measures 53 x 32 cm.

The drawing on the cover of the game and the centre of the board has a definite 1920s flavour. In fact, I would say that one of the featured riders is Henri Pelissier, winner of the 1923 Tour. Check this picture of the Pélissier brothers for a comparison.

 

The rest of the board appears to be drawn by a different hand.

 

 

 

There should be six riders in the game, one for every lane of the board, but I just have five. Besides, one of which is beheaded (as happens often with tin riders, compare with those in this game). This is why you only see four in the pictures.

 

These 32 mm-long tin riders could even be older than the 1920s, and at one point I thought they might have been reused from some other game, since they do not look like Tour de France riders but rather like postmen (or maybe military cyclists), don't they?

 

However, since the smaller version of the game also features cyclists that look like postmen, but they are different from the ones here, I find it hard to accept that they reused riders from two different games, so, until proven wrong, I will reluctantly admit that these riders were designed for these games.

 

Speaking of the Pélissier brothers, check these pictures, also from the Wikipedia: Henri, Francis, and Charles. Maybe this is how professional riders looked after all... when they were not racing, of course.

 

Rather unusually, the game features four different ways to play. Notice that a piece of paper has been glued to the bottom right corner of the rules, possibly to correct some printing mistake. All in all, there are 34 race incidents for a 191-squares-long race.

None of the ways to play offer any strategic choice. You just roll the dice (the number of dice depends on which set of rules you are using), and you move accordingly. However, the first set of rules is complex enough to include this game in the simple stage race games category, instead of that of simple roll-and-move games, which, by the way, is where you will find the companion game.

 

The game was still sold in 1935. The price was 22 Francs.

These figurines belong to a different copy of the game (which I do not have; it's just a found picture).
While they look older, they still look more like postmen than Tour de France riders.

Thanks to Jean Catherine for finding this game.

Description rewritten in June 2025.

CULTURE IDEAS	TOTUM REVOLUTUM THUMBNAILS	NAMES ALPHABETICAL	CATEGORIES LISTS	WHAT'S NEW BLOG