Using Atlantic City street names, Monopoly was one of a number of analogous land-trading games that had a modest following in the early decades of the 20th century. However, there can be no doubt that it became the cultural phenomenon that it did because of an unemployed Philadelphia-area heating engineer by the name of Charles Darrow.Īlthough Darrow was once supposed to have invented the game of Monopoly - a supposition he encouraged - it is now understood that he was introduced by friends in the Philadelphia area to a home-spun version of the game in early 1933. The game of Monopoly has a long and complicated history and an extensive and sometimes contradictory literature. Six early editions of Monopoly, a popular game in the Forbes household, were included in the sale, most of them acquired by Forbes's sons in homage to their father's love of capitalism. One of more than 200 pieces included in the sale, it was estimated at $60,000-80,000 on December 17. Thought to date from 1933, this was the earliest 'Darrow' set known to survive, the only one of circular shape, and the earliest to include a carbon typescript rules sheet.
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