One of the first things changed was the color of the box from black to blue. Once Parker Brothers figured out Monopoly was taking off, they decided to offer a variety of different game options. This style box was a Darrow design and Parker Brothers just continued production using his design. ~~ Black and Blue Number 7 and Number 5 Boxes~~ Lots of good stuff there about early Monopoly games. Also, check out the online Vintage Monopoly Game Collectors group here. Please feel free to email me with corrections, questions, or comments. I'm always adding new box varieties so check back once in a while for updates. The game boxes pictured below show different label designs and kind of a chronology of manufacture. These seem to be extremely rare.ĬLICK HERE and you will go to a page from another Monopoly collectors web site showing a detailed list of dates for the legal statements on game boxes and boards. The earliest known Canadian game is the No 9 White Box with legals stating CANADIAN (Trademark) REGISTRATION APPLIED FOR and CANADIAN PATENT APPLIED FOR, described below. Most early games can be dated within a few years using these label elements.Ĭanadian Monopoly games were introduced in 1936 and closely resembled the U.S. That office closed in 1940 and London was replaced by Chicago.ĭating early Monopoly games is done by the patent numbers and cities listed on the labels. Parker Brothers had an office in London and included this city on the labels of their Monopoly games. The phrase A PARKER TRADING GAME was added to the box tops in 1937.

When the 1924 patent expired in 1941, they dropped that number from the labels and used only the later patent issued to them. The new patent was added to the labels and games produced from 1936 - 1941 included both patents printed on the labels. Their patent was issued on Dec 31, 1935, patent number 2,026,082. In the meantime, PB applied for their own patent on Monopoly. To protect their investment in Darrow's Monoply game, they decided to purchase the 1924 patent to the Landlords game and added that patent to their Monopoly games. This statement was used for a while in 1935, but they discovered that there were other games very much like Monopoly already with patents. Over 100,000 games were produced with this label. Parker Brothers applied for their own patent and the next group of their games stated PATENT PENDING or PATENT APPLIED FOR. This included a small number of the No 9 long box, very rare today. About 24,000 - 25,000 of these were maunfactured.

The first games Parker Brothers made were marked TRADE MARK. PB immediately began selling Monopoly games using the Darrow game parts. This included Darrow's inventory of game parts. In 1935, Parker Brothers (PB) bought the rights to Monopoly from the 'inventor', Charles Darrow. HOW OLD IS MY MONOPOLY GAME? EARLY MONOPOLY GAME BOX DESIGNS

Parker brothers monopoly game pieces