10 Things You [Probably] Didn't Know About… Monopoly

Whether you're somewhat of a board gaming master, or you just like to wind away the odd rainy weekend, Monopoly is surely one of the top games in your collection. If not, it should be! With over a whopping 80 years of being sent to jail, playing a Community Chest card and building and empire, Monopoly has been a household staple and we're sure it will be around for a long while yet.

To help celebrate this true retro icon and our latest range of Monopoly Merchandise which has just hit our site, we thought we would do some digging and sniff out some cool facts to share with you guys.

So! Without further ado, let us pass GO, collect £200 and let the fact finding begin! Enjoy...

1. As odd as it seems for such an iconic game, it was actually initially rejected by Parker Brothers for having '52 fundamental errors'. These included game length and simply how complex it was. Mad huh.

2. The games mascot or 'The Monopoly guy' is actually called Rich Uncle Pennybags which was also the games original title.

3. The longest ever game of monopoly lasted over 70 days. That's a lot of arguments and tea!

4. Mega bucks! In 1998, celebrated San Francisco jeweller Sidney Mobell created the most expensive Monopoly set in the world which was valued at a cool $2 million. It was made with a 23k gold-plated board and had tokens made with 18k yellow gold with diamonds, rubies and sapphires. As you do.

5. Weirdly, the origins of Charles Darrow's game was an earlier game called 'The Landlord’s Game' which was created by Elizabeth Magie to help warn people about Monopolies. It was meant to show people the dangers or land grabbing and having single powerful entities.

6. Playing with a POW! To aid the war effort, special secret sets were created to help smuggle tools, maps, compasses, information etc into prisoner of war camps during WW2. Sneaky!

7. Because there's always someone wanting to take it further, there is actually a Monopoly World Championships held every year. The top prize is a cool $20,580.

8. The character you can see in the jail square is called “Jake the Jailbird.”

9. Make money money money! As it turns out, Parker Brothers actually produce more currency per year than the US mint does!

10. Now it seems pretty insignificant to us these days, but back when this game was first released, you could pick up a set for around just $2!

So there we have them folks! Some pretty amazing (if not sometimes off) nuggets of information there huh. Certainly some you can bring out when you're next playing to annoy impress your friends or family huh!

Know any other cool Monopoly facts? Shout them out below. If not, why not check out our complete range of Monopoly Memorabilia including everything from Tees to Tea Towels, or Boardgames to Beer Mats!

xoxo