Tag Archives: Boondoggling game

The eBay Beat: Metal Monopoly Money, Boondoggling Board, Stock Exchange

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Metal Monopoly Money

A nearly complete set of metal Monopoly money recently sold on eBay for $811.00.

These are very rare, as evidenced in the price. Metal money was used for a few years in the late 1930s in some of Parker Brothers’ most expensive sets, perhaps inspired by the poker chips sometimes used by early Monopoly players. You could also purchase a set separately from those games.

Parker did use similar metal money in other games in this era. However, these coins in particular have been criticized for their design since they apparently do not stack well.

Here is the seller’s description:

You are bidding on a box of metal Monopoly money (coins) – box is approx. 4 3/4″ x 2″. The last ones on Ebay sold in 2012 for 1439.00 you can’t find them on eBay or anywhere else on an internet research. The coins are a Parker Brothers after market item sold as replacement pieces or to upgrade other sets. Denominations are $1, $5, $10, $20, $50, $100 and $500. I don’t know how many coins there should be, there are spacers in the box to hold them in place and box looks full maybe a few missing. The box has some wear, a little bit of scuffing and a tear. Coins are all in good condition.

 

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Boondoggling Board

Although in general Boondoggling sets have sold for a lot of money in the last few years, this recent auction for the board only was an exception. It seems to have gone unnoticed by some collectors and sold for just $16.66.

We recently reported on a complete Boondoggling set that sold for $500. Looks like someone got a real bargain here.

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Stock Exchange Add-On

A Parker Brothers Stock Exchange Add-On recently sold on eBay for $275.00.

As the BoardGameGeek web site notes:

STOCK EXCHANGE was orignally marketed by Capitol Novelty Co. as a supplement for Monopoly, Easy Money, and Finance real estate trading games. It allows players to buy and trade stocks in addition to real estate. Players attempt to build a portfolio of stock which will pay them dividends and give them more monetary clout during the game.

Parker Brothers purchased the game from Capitol Novelty in 1936 and marketed it for a short time as a supplement for only Monopoly and Finance games (both Parker Brothers games), dropping Milton Bradley’s Easy Money game. The 1937 version dropped the Finance reference and only listed Monopoly on the game box.

Contains: Stock exchange board space (fits over “Free Parking.”), eleven new Community Chest cards, ten new Chance cards, thirty stock shares (five each of six different companies).

 

Stock Exchange was available in the US during the late 1930s, and there are a few variations of these sets. There were also international versions (for Canada and Australia at least), and those are collectible as well.

The add-on was briefly reissued in a new version made by Chessex in 1992 that is considered less collectible.

Stock Exchange is also thought to have helped inspire the Parker game Bulls and Bears (1936), which was heavily promoted as a supposed follow-up to Monopoly. Parker used Charles B. Darrow as a sort of celebrity endorser to this game, claiming he was the inventor. But he actually had even less to do with this game than with Monopoly. Bulls and Bears was developed by Parker’s own staff.

Perhaps Parker Brothers hoped to burnish Darrow’s credentials as a supposed inventor of Monopoly in the public mind by associating him with another game.

The name also harkens back to the Parker card game Pit, which eventually acquired Bull and Bear cards.

Bulls and Bears sold well for a brief period of time, but it was not a very interesting game compared to Monopoly, in part because it did not have Monopoly’s 30 year gestation period.

The square patch that came with Stock Exchange sometimes got glued onto Monopoly boards, and is generally considered to reduce their value as a result. Often, partial Stock Exchange sets are found mixed in with Monopoly sets, and these generally are missing the box, which is key to value.

-Clarence B. Darwin

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The eBay Beat: Boondoggling (1936)

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FYI, a rare 1936 Boondoggling game just sold for $500 on eBay (photos enclosed).

Boondoggling is an early Monopoly knock-off and was also a timely political game in the 1936 presidential election season, which ran from about Labor Day until early November. It was created by a couple of college professors who were anti-New Deal. The game plays like Monopoly in reverse, where the various players try to be the first to spend all their money on wasteful government programs, or “boondoggles.”

The dictionary definition of boondoggle is:

1 : a braided cord worn by Boy Scouts as a neckerchief slide, hatband, or ornament. 2 : a wasteful or impractical project or activity often involving graft.

According to the Wikipedia:

The term arose from a 1935 New York Times report that more than $3 million had been spent on recreational activities for the jobless as part of the New Deal. Among these activities were crafts classes, where the production of “boon doggles,” described in the article as various utilitarian “gadgets” made with cloth or leather, were taught. The term’s earlier definition is thought to have its origin in scouting, particularly in reference to a woggle.

The word quickly caught on, and was often used by opponents of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. FDR embraced the term and said, in effect, if it will help us get out of the Depression, by all means, let’s have boondoggles.

FDR’s opponent in the 1936 election was Kansas Governor Alf Landon, who would have governed more in the Hoover mold. He lost in a landslide.

The Boondoggling game appeared briefly during the campaign and appears to have been published by the Washington Star, a Republican newspaper. GOP activist Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Theodore Roosevelt’s daughter and a staunch FDR opponent, mentioned it in her syndicated column.

Since it was apparently not marketed to department stores, the usual outlet for Monopoly-type games, Boondoggling’s overall construction was cheap and insubstantial, with a paper board and flimsy box. Few were sold and even fewer have survived.

I have owned a few examples of this game. I once owned the board in the collection of the Strong Museum of American Play, and sold another example to the family of one of the creators.

For a time, this was an under-appreciated game, but prices have greatly increased in the last few years.

As an anti-New Deal game, it is a contemporary of Rudy Copeland’s Inflation, also from 1936. That was a much higher quality product.

Ironically, in spite of the anti-New Deal theme of Inflation, Rudy Copeland campaigned for FDR in 1936.

While Boondoggling was not around long enough to draw legal action from Parker Brothers as a Monopoly knock-off, they did try suing Rudy Copeland over Inflation, which was sold in department stores. Once Copeland was able to find more than two dozen people who swore they had played Monopoly prior to its supposed invention by Charles Darrow, Parker and Copeland settled out of court. He received a financial settlement from Parker Brothers, along with a license to use the two Monopoly patents that Parker owned.

However, by 1937, the bloom was temporarily off the Monopoly rose, and Inflation quickly faded from view, as Boondoggling did before it.

In 1951 there was a game called Boondoggle, tied in to the 1952 presidential election, but there was no connection with the earlier Boondoggling game. I believe there was a 1980 version as well.

The various tokens used in Boondoggling had the names of various FDR advisers, popularly known as the “Brain Trust.” These included Rexford Tugwell (1891-1979), who was also an early Monopoly player.

-Clarence B. Darwin

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