EARLY MONOPOLY

AIRED: Season 2, Episode 2
THE DETECTIVE: Elyse Luray
THE PLACE: Arden, Delaware

THE CASE:

A man in Delaware has an old board game that bears a remarkable similarity to Monopoly, but was made 20 years before Parker Brothers patented their creation.

Could he own the earliest version of the world's best-selling board game? To solve this mystery, History Detectives investigates Monopoly's history and discovers a surprising story.

Rather than originating in the Great Depression of the 1930s, Monopoly could be a much older game, reflecting an economic argument that - if followed - would have created a radically different economy from today's.

Early Monopoly? (PDF File 114K) (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)

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