Original Monopoly Fetches Record Amount

In December 2010, Sotheby's Auction House was commissioned to sell something a little more fun then mundane artwork - The Malcolm Forbes Toy collection. Amongst the items up for auction were armies of toy soldiers from the Revolutionary wars, castles filled with medieval warriors and most exciting of all, one of the first Monopoly sets ever made.

The perfectly preserved set, which included a carbon transcript of the original rules, was one of only 5,000 made by Charles Darrow in 1933 and, is believed to be the only set that still exists. It has previously been owned by only two families - Charles Darrow's and Malcolm Forbes.

Unlike today's square cardboard versions, this one is circular in shape and crafted from a piece of oilcloth. The surface is painted with pen and ink and the houses and hotels are handmade from strips of pine wood molding.

However, besides that there are very few things that are different from the modern Monopoly. Set in Atlantic City, the board game depicts 28 properties, that includes four train stations and two utility companies. There were also three Chance, three Community Chests, two Tax Squares as well as, spaces for Go, Free Parking, Jail and the much hated 'Go to Jail'. While the original rules provided no value on blank spaces, they were color coded, just like the ones in the modern versions.

The history behind Monopoly that still ranks among the top board games in the world, is rather interesting. While Charles Darrow was responsible for copywriting the rules of the game that made him a millionaire, he is not considered the inventor. That honor goes to political activist Lizzie Magi, who came up with the first version of Monopoly in 1903, calling it - The Landord's Game.

According to experts, Mr. Darrow morphed that into his version and took his copyrighted design to board game company Parker Brothers, in 1933, where he was instantly rejected because of too many design flaws. Undeterred the Germantown, Pennsylvania resident, started to hand make his own versions of the game. However, it took so long that he decided to enlist the help of a local publisher.

The game became popular so quickly that he could still not keep up with the demand. So 5,000 sets later, he approached Parker Brothers again - Only this time, they bought the rights from him for millions! That decision has sure paid off. Today, Monopoly is manufactured in 43 languages and has been played by over a billion people, in 243 countries.

As for the price of the Monopoly that was up on the auction block? Sotheby's very proudly announced that it sold for an eye-popping $120,000 USD, much higher than their original estimates of between $60,000 to $80,000 USD. The Forbes family ended up taking home a total of $2.4 million USD from the sale of their entire toy collection - Not too shabby for a bunch of old sailboats and tin soldiers, is it?

Resources: npr.org,antiquestradegazette.com,dailymail.co.uk