Celebrating the 1933 Charles Darrow handmade Monopoly games, this auction is for one reproduction "holographic" game board made by The Folkopoly Press. It measures 23" square, and is based on an original oilcloth board, the second one Darrow made, that is now in the collection of the Strong Museum of American Play in Rochester, New York. The first Darrow set is known as the Round Board but this is the first board he made that is in the same shape as the Monopoly boards that followed.
This board is hand drawn and colored using ink and paint on blackout cloth, which is the closest modern equivalent of the old type of oilcloth from the 1930s. The playing surface should hold up just fine if properly taken care of.
As
actual early Monopoly items become older and older, more scarce and
valuable, they take on the status of "holy relics" that you probably
should treat with kid gloves. Naturally, some of the experience of
using them to actually play Monopoly is thereby lost.
Also
lost, over the years, is what I call the "shock of the new." Long gone
is the experience of opening up one of these classic game sets and
using it for the first time.
That's
part of what I hope to bring back with these reproduction sets. I want
anyone who gets one of these to have the same sort of elation that
buyers had in 1933, when this was all a brand new thing.
If you were a close personal friend of Charles Darrow in 1933, you could have paid him to make a game board such as this. Then, most likely, you would have folded it up and stuck it into your dresser until when you wanted to get your friends and family together for an evening of that new game, Monopoly. Playing it back then was like being a member of a private club or a fraternity.
Original oilcloth boards are worth tens of thousands of dollars and I seriously doubt anyone would want to try playing a game with anything so old and fragile. But with one of our handmade boards, you can have much the same experience for but very little cost.
Needless to say, it takes a considerable amount of time and effort to produce a one-of-a-kind item such as this. We are never going to be able to make them in anything but the smallest of quantities. Blackout cloth has a nice rubberized backing. This board is suitable either for framing as a piece of "folk art" or for actually playing Monopoly.
PAYMENT
You can pay using any eBay approved payment method. Your prompt payment is appreciated.
SERVICE
Items will be mailed promptly, and packed securely so as to avoid being damaged.
SHIPPING METHOD:
The set will be shipped domestically by USPS First Class Mail for $5.00. Priority Mail costs $15.00. International shipping will be via eBay Global Shipping. They determine the rates.
REFUNDS:
I provide a refund (purchase price only) after your return of any item that I shipped with a physical defect or is not the item listed - BUT you must contact me first for a return authorization.
REFUND EXCLUSION:
Damage or loss by the US Postal Service is not eligible for refunds since I can't control what they do with a package after I deliver it to them.
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