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Emporium

"In 1934, Charles B. Darrow of Germantown, Pennsylvania, presented a game called MONOPOLY to the executives at Parker Brothers. Mr. Darrow, like many other Americans, was unemployed at the time and often played this game to amuse himself and pass the time. It was the game's exciting promise of fame and fortune that prompted Darrow to initially produce this game on his own.

With help from a friend who was a printer, Darrow sold 5,000 sets of MONOPOLY to a Philadelphia department store. As the demand for the game grew, Darrow could not keep up with the orders and arranged for Parker Brothers to take over the game.

Since 1935 when Parker Brothers acquired the rights to the game, it has become the leading proprietary game not only in the United States but throughout the Western world. The game is published under licence in thirty two countries and in nineteen foreign languages."

-A foreword to the monopoly rules

"Each player is given $1500 divided as follows: 2 each of $500's, $100's and $50's; 6-$20; 5 each of $10's, $5's and $1's."

-Written in the goddamn original rules

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Dom:
You have me on the money; you should however note that the original distributions were one $500, seven $100, two $50, five $20, seven $10, five $5 and five $1 and before that (you'll see how there can be a before that further down) it was one $500, five $100, five $50, five $20, ten $10, eight $5 and ten $1 - no closer to what I thought, but still.

As for the little spiel on the origins of the game: don't make me laugh! This, of course, would have been the story written in the Parker Brothers version of the game, so they're going to leave some (rather uncomplementary) things out. Want to know what really happened?

Charles Darrow initially made the sets of the Monopoly game by hand with the help of his first son, Wiliam Darrow, and his wife. Charles drew the designs with a drafting pen on round pieces of oilcloth, and then his son and his wife helped fill in the spaces with colors and make the title deed cards and the chance and community chest cards.

After the demand for the game increased, Darrow contacted a printing company, which printed the designs of the property spaces on square carton boards.

Monopoly was first marketed on a broad scale by Parker Brothers on November 5, 1935 with international licensing rights given to Waddington Games of the United Kingdom (both of which are now part of Hasbro).

In the 1930s, John Waddington Ltd. (Waddingtons) was a firm of printers from Leeds that had begun to branch out into packaging and the production of playing cards. Waddingtons had sent the card game Lexicon to Parker Brothers hoping to interest them in publishing the game in the United States. In a similar fashion Parker Brothers sent over a copy of Monopoly to Waddingtons early in 1935 before the game had been put into production in the United States.

The managing director of Waddingtons, Victor Watson, gave the game to his son Norman (who was head of the card games division) to test over the weekend. Norman was impressed by the game and persuaded his father to call Parker Brothers on Monday morning. This call resulted in Waddingtons obtaining a license to produce and market the game outside of the United States.

So, there we go - the two main versions were produced concurrently. In fact, Darrow's patent didn't come through until Dec. 31, 1935, by which time Waddingtons had the board, and given the fact that the Waddingtons board was the standard board throughout the commonwealth, it's fair to say that when the Parker Brothers introduction says 'it has become the leading proprietary game not only in the United States but throughout the Western world', they are not talking about the New Jersey board at all.

You should also note that some of the differences on the New Zealand board reflect our British heritage in that the London version replaced the income tax choice from the U.S. version flat rate, and the $75 Luxury Tax square by the £100 Super Tax square. As for reasons why Parker Brothers might want to brush over (read: lie about) the whole history of the game:

Although Monopoly was patented by Charles Darrow before selling the rights to Parker Brothers in 1935, similar games had been played before, including homemade games adapted to the places where players lived. A frequently cited example: in 1904, Georgist (that is, a supporter of political economist Henry George) Lizzie Magie patented a game called "The Landlord's Game" with the object of demonstrating how rents enrich property owners and impoverish tenants. She knew that some people can find it hard to understand why this happens and what might be done about it and she thought that if Georgist ideas were put into the concrete form of a game, they might be easier to demonstrate.

Although The Landlord's Game was patented, it was not taken up by a manufacturer until 1910, when it was published in the U.S. by the Economic Game Company of New York. In the UK it was published in 1913 by the Newbie Game Company of London under the title Brer Fox an' Brer Rabbit. Despite the title change, it was recognizably the same game.

Apart from commercial distribution, it spread by word of mouth and was played in slightly variant homemade versions over the years by Quakers (members of the Religious Society of Friends), Georgists, university students and others who became aware of it. As it spread, its rules were changed, most notably in dropping the second phase of the game during which a Land tax was introduced to replace the other taxes, and the shortened game became known as "Auction Monopoly". It was often localized, with the original fanciful property names being replaced by street names from the cities where the players lived. By the late 1920s it was known simply as "Monopoly" and was played very much as it is now. One version of the game, commonly played in the Philadelphia area, had Atlantic City street names; this game was taught to Charles Darrow, who then sold it as his personal invention to Parker Brothers. Parker Brothers subsequently decided to buy out Magie's copyright, and the copyrights of other commercial variants of the game, in order to have legitimate, undisputed rights to the game. Parker Brothers then promoted Darrow as the game's sole inventor. Decades later, when they attempted to suppress publication of a game called Anti-Monopoly, designed by Ralph Ansbach, the trademark suit went all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1983, and the court found in favor of Ansbach because Darrow had merely copied an existing game that was known as "Monopoly" by those who played it.

Interesting, huh. Oh, and, seeing as we seem to be going by the official rules, did you read this one:

If the player lands on an unowned property, he may buy it for the price listed on that property's space. If he agrees to buy it, he pays the Bank the amount shown on the property space and receives the title deed for that property. If he declines to buy it, the property must be immediately put up for auction. All players are eligible to participate in the auction, including the player who declined to buy it, and the bidding may start at any price. The highest bidder wins the property and pays the Bank the amount bid and receives the property's title deed. Railroads and utilities are also properties.

Yep. Kinda changes the game, doesn't it. A colour set is officially known as a land monopoly. Don't get me started on the 10% rule for mortgaged property, nor the 50% rule for house resale. Oh, and of course there's this little gem:

A player may not loan money or trade anything for future consideration.

That's what we real Monopoly players like to call 'pwned'.