by Bruce Whitehill
2006
MONOPOLY has been produced by Parker Brothers for over 60 years, with millions of sets being made. The game just couldn’t be worth the $35-and-higher most dealers are demanding. Even the 1935 edition was plentiful enough to have little collectible value today. The property of value is the pre-Parker, DARROW MONOPOLY, which can command prices in excess of $1000. This was the 1934 MONOPOLY made by Charles Darrow before he sold the game to Parker. (Parker originally turned it down, so Darrow manufactured and sold the game himself until Parker, impressed by Darrow’s success, then offered to take the game.) The property cards are all solid color cards printed on one side only; the gameboard has “©1933 Chas. B. Darrow” in corner of jail space, and there are no patent numbers or “pat. pending” on the board; instructions are on the buildup, and marked “1934 Rules” and showing Darrow’s Germantown, Pennsylvania address; money has no lettering, just geometric designs. Don’t be fooled by the transitionary Parker sets that still show Chas. Darrow’s name by the jail space–they’re still Parker Brothers and they’re not uncommon, so the value would not exceed $75 in mint condition.
Two DARROW MONOPOLY sets sold at auction, one in 1988 and one in 1991; they fetched a whopping $2400 and $4000 respectively, but that’s when no one had seen the game. Now other sets have surfaced, and the value to game collectors has dropped below $2000. The 1935 Parker sets are valued over $50 only if the board has either “patent pending” or one patent number; also worth more are the special editions, including the 1985 commemorative set and wartime sets that replaced the metal tokens with composition pieces.
EASY MONEY and FINANCE AND FORTUNE are tied into the MONOPOLY story. In fact, some of the early sets had the same patent number as MONOPOLY, a curious fact considering they were different games produced by different companies. I won’t go into what Parker was doing at the time to monopolize the financial game market, which is also tied into the story about acquiring Elizabeth Magie Phillips’ THE LANDLORD’S GAME from which MONOPOLY was taken, but a book by ANTI-MONOPOLY’s Ralph Anspach may appear soon to shed some light on some of these events.
The original EASY MONEY, by Milton Bradley, was very much like MONOPOLY–even to the extent that the game had property cards–and it first came out around the same time. This rare, early version can be worth a few hundred dollars, but most EASY MONEY sets are worth even less than the common MONOPOLY.
At the same time it sold MONOPOLY, Parker released FINANCE AND FORTUNE; the 1936 game had “Chance” spaces, four railroads, and a “Cash Here” space that gave players $200 when they passed it. Sound familiar? All this plus paper money, wooden houses, and wood playing pieces that were different colors and shapes. The name was changed to FINANCE (the original name of the game Parker purchased from the Finance Game Company), and another game, FORTUNE was released, published “merely to secure its trademark.” FORTUNE lasted until around 1940. By the late ‘40s, the title of FINANCE AND FORTUNE returned. Only the pre-1940 games have any value, and even those shouldn’t cost more than about $60.
Transogram countered the craze with BIG BUSINESS, another game from 1936. You have to remember that the crash of 1929 was not felt by the game companies until around 1933. Movies and games had been among the least expensive popular diversions. By 1936, game companies were rebounding from the depression, and the success of MONOPOLY suggested that the post-depression public, many of whom had lost everything, enjoyed playing with millions as people wheeled and dealed with imaginary fortunes. BIG BUSINESS, however, doesn’t seem to do as much business with collectors as the other finance games, probably because of the smaller size and cheaper construction of the game. BIG BUSINESS continues to be at most a $25 game.
These classic finance games continued for decades. Parker Brothers’ PAYDAY didn’t emerge until 40 years after the first Parker MONOPOLY (PAYDAY shows a copyright of 1975). The 80 cards of the original version have been cut back to 72 in the latest, 1995 version (still in their line), but the game is still a card & board game staple. PAYDAY is garage sale fare, not of particular interest to collectors.
On the other hand, the game of BOOM OR BUST, from 1951, is the most-asked-for of all the finance games. The original game has cards cut in the shape of a “T” which identify each property owner, and is decidedly more valuable than later versions. This Parker Brothers’ game in an oversized, square box was so well-played that it’s hard to find in excellent condition; hence condition is more important in governing price than it would be in most other games. The game must also have the separate mini-board, with “BOOM” printed on one side and “BUST” on the other, in order to have its value–the center board was turned over depending on market conditions, or taken off to reveal “NORMAL” conditions. BOOM OR BUST is a game to play as well as collect, and because of the demand, it can now sell for over $100.
In 1973, economics professor Ralph Anspach came out with ANTI-MONOPOLY: THE “BUST THE TRUST” GAME. The Sherman Anti-Trust Law is quoted on the cover. The history of this game is more interesting than the game seems to be worth to collectors. Mr. Anspach was sued by Parker for using the MONOPOLY name in his title. He lost, and was forced by law to dump thousands of games into a landfill. The Supreme Court overturned the lower court’s ruling, stating that the word “Monopoly” had become generic and the registration of it as a trademark was no longer valid. Furthermore, they stated that “the court’s reference to Darrow as the inventor or creator of the game is clearly erroneous.” There have been subsequent versions of the game, and it has sold well in Europe, in addition to the U.S., but it still hasn’t caught on with collectors. The early version should be worth at least $25, and I expect that price might rise quickly.
Finally, we jump to the 1980s when TRUMP, THE GAME, by Milton Bradley, made its debut. The figures in this 1989 game are large capital Ts, the cover shows a color photo of billionaire developer and author Donald J. Trump,
