---
title: "Which came first, Coca-Cola or Monopoly?"
description: "Coca-Cola vs Monopoly: Coca-Cola came first, by 18 years — 1886 against 1904. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/coca-cola-vs-monopoly/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Coca-Cola or Monopoly?

**Which came first, Coca-Cola or Monopoly?: Coca-Cola**

1886 — 18 years before Monopoly

Coca-Cola came first, by 18 years. John Pemberton first sold his syrup at a pharmacy in Atlanta.

## Side by side

|  | Coca-Cola | Monopoly |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1886 | 1904 |
| Date | 1886-05-08 | 1904-01-05 |
| Category | company | media |
| What happened | John Pemberton first sold his syrup at a pharmacy in Atlanta. | Lizzie Magie patented The Landlord's Game. |

## Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola went on sale in May 1886 as a patent medicine, selling about nine glasses a day in its first year. Pemberton sold the rights for a few thousand dollars and died in 1888 without seeing any of it. Pepsi followed in 1893 under the name Brad's Drink, renamed Pepsi-Cola in 1898 — so Coke is seven years older, and both are older than the Ford Motor Company.

## Monopoly

Parker Brothers published Monopoly in 1935 and told the story of Charles Darrow, an unemployed man who invented it at his kitchen table. The truth is that Elizabeth Magie patented The Landlord's Game in 1904 — a nearly identical board designed to demonstrate how land monopolies impoverish tenants, which is precisely the opposite of the message the commercial version carries. Parker Brothers bought her patent for $500.

## Common questions

### Which came first, Coca-Cola or Monopoly?

Coca-Cola, by 18 years — 1886 against 1904.

### When did Coca-Cola start?

1886. John Pemberton first sold his syrup at a pharmacy in Atlanta.

### When did Monopoly start?

1904. Lizzie Magie patented The Landlord's Game.

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## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]