Summer Brief: Monopoly: Trivia

Token Trivia
The Monopoly pieces came about because of good old Charles Darrow, He was given a box of 'Favor Cake set'. A Favor cake set included multiple lead pieces, with these you had a sheet of paper, what you would do is cut out the corresponding Fortune and Wrap it along with the lead piece and then bake them into a cake.

(This is my favourite piece of Monopoly trivia, mostly because the purpose of the fortune favour pieces themselves is totally obscure to begin with. It's such an odd premise.)

Sound familiar?

Charles Darrow apparently had other ideas, and he ended up using this pieces he received from a friend to use for his upcoming board game Monopoly.

These have since lost their initial intentions from Favor cake sets and are now all icons for the Monopoly game pieces.

Token extract below taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_(game)

Wheelbarrow (1937b edition) Each player is represented by a small metal token that is moved around the edge of the board according to the roll of two dice. The number of tokens and the tokens themselves have changed over the history of the game, with many appearing in special editions only, and some available with non-game purchases. As of 2013, eight tokens are included in standard edition games, including:

Battleship

Racecar

Thimble

Old-style shoe (or boot)

Scottie dog

Top hat

Cat (2013-onwards)

Previous tokens retired in the 1950s (replaced by the dog, man on horseback, and wheelbarrow):

Lantern

Purse

Rocking horse

Other retired tokens:

Sack of money (1999–2007 editions; won a 1998 contest over a piggy bank and biplane)

Man on horseback

Iron (1935-2013 editions)

Howitzer, better known as a cannon

Hasbro often creates custom Token sets for special edition boards, such examples include the Simpsons, Disney token sets.

Simpsons Game board tokens.

Glow in the Dark Simpsons Monopoly tokens.

Disney Villains game board Tokens

Nintendo game board tokens

Pixar game board tokens

The Monopoly Train

The Monopoly train is pretty famed, it appears on the box, the money, the board. What's the significance of the train?

'Monopoly Train'

Also incorporated into the back pattern.

Used for all the Railroads.

On the front used at the top.

The funny thing is, It's simply Charles Darrow's Old toy train he used to play with as a kid. The toy train he passed down to his son, who eventually named the train 'Chooch'. The train below is thought to be the exact one Charles used to play with!

'Chooch'

Variations
There are currently as of Sept '13 there is 2415 versions of Monopoly:

(Unoffical & Offical)

The reason the Unofficial versions can exist is because Monopoly was in the Public domain before the game was Commercialised.

Allowing Game publishers to create their own versions, they just can't call it 'Monopoly' Or be Hasbro Branded. This allows for versions such as Gay-oply, DIY-oply, and so on.

http://jergames.blogspot.com/2006/02/monopoly-versions.html
...

Bayern
Bayern Muchen FC
Baylor
Bayreuth
BBC Radio One
BBK Clinical Research and Development
Beach
Beachfront
Beagle
Bean
Beauvais
Beaver
Beaver Island
Bel Air
Belchertown
Belfast
Belgian
Belgian Ltd
Belgian Travel
Belgie-Belgique
Belgrade
Belkin
Bellaire
Bellingen Shire Council
Belvider
Bend's Powderbroker
Berkshire Hathaway

...

This list includes all spin-off versions other Game markers have produced such as DIY-OPOLY:

http://www.usaopoly.com/games

http://www.lateforthesky.com/Prod-30-1-82-6/DIY-OPOLY.htm

However on the Wikipedia Page there is an Official list of Localised versions of Monopoly, they just don't have a number for exactly how many there is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Localized_versions_of_the_Monopoly_game#Variants

They even had a Monopoly game show in the 90's!!

It was does have various forms where it's a circle.

Funnily enough, monopoly isn't rated that highly around Game board officianardos. However the Monopoly Card dealing game is apparently alot of fun.

http://boardgamegeek.com/search/boardgame?sort=bggrating&q=monopoly&B1=Go

Monopoly Man

The original drawing of the Monopoly man was a caricature of Charles Darrow.

However the drawing that then replaced this one with a rougher version of the current Mr.Moneybags/ Monopoly (below)

This drawing is however a caricature of J.P. Morgan as famous financier.

The first appearance of the drawing comes from 'Game of rich uncle', this is where the original name for the character comes from. However his first appearance was on Early change and community chest cards and first box appearance was on the game of DIG.