Monopoly and Its Forgotten Inventor

On February 6, 1935, the board game Monopoly first went on sale. The game was created by Charles B. Darrow and sold to Parker Brothers. Parker Brothers initially rejected the game as "too complicated, too technical, [and it] took too long to play".

 

In early 1935, however, the company heard about the game's excellent sales during the Christmas season of 1934 in Philadelphia and at F.A.O. Schwarz in New York City. Robert Barton, President of Parker Brothers, contacted Darrow and scheduled a new meeting in New York City. On March 18th, Parker Brothers bought Darrow's game, helped him take out a patent on it, and purchased his remaining inventory.

 

 

Darrow derived Monopoly from The Landlord's Game created by Lizzie Magie in 1903. Magie's game had two sets of rules: an anti-monopolist set in which all were rewarded when wealth was created, and a monopolist set in which the goal was to create monopolies and crush opponents. After Darrow sold the rights to the game to Parker Brothers, they found out he was not the sole inventor and bought the rights from Magie for $500.

 

 

In a January 1936 interview, Elizabeth Magie was asked "how she felt about getting only $500 for her patent and no royalties ever. She replied that it was all right with her "if she never made a dime so long as the Henry George single tax idea was spread to the people of the country."

 

The first pieces were made from materials from Darrow's home. A piece of oilcloth covered the board, the cards were handwritten, and the houses and hotels were made from wooden scraps.

 

 

The first Monopoly die-cast tokens were metal charms from his nieces' charm bracelets. The original game included 10 metal tokens. There was an iron, purse, lantern, racecar, thimble, shoe, top hat, battleship, cannon and a rocking horse.

The current classic Monopoly game includes eight tokens. There's the battleship, top hat, Scottie dog, racecar, thimble, boot, cat, and wheelbarrow. More than 20 different tokens have made their way into the game. Some tokens we've seen include an elephant, purse, and a bag of money. The Monopoly 80th Anniversary Edition game features one iconic token from each of its eight decades including the bathtub, locomotive, money bag, cat, cannon, cavalry, and the Monopoly World Championships trophy.

 

The city of London was the setting of the first licensed Monopoly game. The theme is now Atlantic City, New Jersey. More than one billion people have played Monopoly worldwide.

 

 

The original Monopoly sold for around $2.

 

 

Now published in 47 languages and a Braille version, more than 200,000,000 games have been sold in 114 countries—making Darrow the first millionaire game designer in history.

 

 

P.S. Here’s a tip: The three most-landed-on properties in the classic Monopoly game are Illinois Avenue, “GO” and B&O Railroad.