Vintage Monopoly Game

From the fascinating and sometimes controversial history of the evolving Monopoly board game, our set which is copyrighted 1935, is no doubt dated between 1937 and 1944, as it has the box lid only identified between 1937-1939 but also has the original wooden pieces that were only produced during World War II, as metal was scarce.

The board is in good condition with some wear. The pieces seem to be in excellent condition and the cards, money and box are in fair to good vintage condition.

In finding the correct date for this particular game, I found this website: Early Monopoly Game Box Designs, which gives historic chronological label details to identify the correct production year. Utilizing this information, I found out the game we have for sale has the box lid (photo 6) identified from 1937-1939 with the two patent numbers and the line ”A Parker Trading Game,” plus the city London included in the list with New York and Salem Mass.

Wikipedia provides this information, ”

The history of the board game Monopoly can be traced back to the early 20th century. The earliest known design was by the American Elizabeth Magie created in 1903. A series of board games were developed from 1906 through the 1930s that involved the buying and selling of land and the development of that land. By 1934, a board game had been created much like the version of Monopoly sold by Parker Brothers and its parent companies through the rest of the 20th century, and into the 21st. Several people, mostly in the Midwestern United States and near the East Coast, contributed to the game’s design and evolution.

By the 1970s, the idea that the game had been created solely by Charles Darrow had become popular folklore: it was printed in the game’s instructions and even in the 1974 book The Monopoly Book: Strategy and Tactics of the World’s Most Popular Game by Maxine Brady. That same decade, Professor Ralph Anspach fought Parker Brothers and its then parent company, General Mills, over the trademarks of the Monopoly board game. Through the research of Anspach and others, much of the early history of the game was ”rediscovered”. Anspach confronted Brady over the actual history of the game on Barry Farber’s New York City talk show in 1975.^[1] Because of the lengthy court process, including appeals, the legal status of Parker Brothers’ trademarks on the game was not settled until 1985. The game’s name remains a registered trademark of Parker Brothers, as do its specific design elements. At the conclusion of the court case, the game’s logo and graphic design elements became part of a larger Monopoly brand, licensed by Parker Brothers’ parent companies onto a variety of items through the present day. Despite the ”rediscovery” of the board game’s early history in the 1970s and 1980s, and several books and journal articles on the subject, Hasbro (Parker Brothers’ current parent company) does not acknowledge any of the game’s history before Charles Darrow on its official Monopoly website, nor in any other materials published or sponsored by Hasbro.^[2]^[3]”