From the late 1950s onwards the design of the plastic houses and hotels has changed very little. There are even a few editions of Monopoly that were released in the early days that had metal houses and hotels that were painted red and green. The Monopoly pieces then became standardized between 19, for nearly 50 years the pieces were a battleship, boot, cannon, horse and rider, iron, racecar, dog, thimble, top hat, and wheelbarrow. During the 1940s a few new designs were tried like a wheelbarrow, Scottish terrier and a plane. A race car and purse were quickly added to make it 8 tokens by the end of 1935.ĭuring WWII, these metal tokens were replaced by wooden pawns or pieces made of a paper and sawdust composite. The first Parker brothers editions introduced the six original tokens: the battleship, boot, cannon, thimble, top hat, and iron. The type of token that you have in the game is another clue as to how old it is. You might like to take a photo of your game and do a Google Lens image search to see if that can find a match. You can find a great selection of images for early games here and here. This is especially important if you have a really old copy from 1935-1954 as there were loads of different versions released that look very similar. One of the easiest ways to find out what version of Monopoly you have is to compare it to images online. The most valuable early editions of the game state ‘Patent Pending’ on the box and have ‘Darrow 1933’ printed in the jail square. The last date is the date of your edition.

For example, it might say ‘© 1935, 1946, 1961 by Parker Brothers’. There will usually be several dates that reflect the different copyrights that have applied to the game since its original release by Parker Brothers in 1935.

Antique monopoly game pieces