Monopoly money
A children’s museum in Rochester, N.Y., has splurged $146,500 (real dollars, not monopoly money) on the oldest known version of Monopoly handmade by inventor Charles Darrow.
In the 1930s, Darrow, an unemployed heating engineer in Philadelphia, produced 5,000 copies of the real-estate trading game and sold them through a Philadelphia department store.
The Strong’s National Museum of Play revealed yesterday it was the winning bidder at Sotheby’s last week for the table-sized board game created around 1933 with pen-and-ink and gouache on a circular piece of oilcloth. It contains 200-plus pieces, including playing cards, hotels and bank notes.
A playful piece of Philadelphia history for this Wednesday morning.
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