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The Billion Dollar Monopoly (R) Swindle, by Ralph Anspach
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Monopoly games are notoriously long but the one which triggered the events in this book really got out of hand--it's now twenty-five years old. The problem was that one thing led to another and first I played Monopoly with the family and then I invented a game called Anti-Monopoly. Being a Professor of Economics, I decided to market my idea on my own which turned out to be a lot of laughs (on me) at first . . . but I learned. . .and eventually I developed it into a national best-seller with the help of a few loyal associates. At which point, Parker Brothers showed its gratitude for my buying its sacred game by hitting us with a major trademark infringement suit. While this caused us a lot of trouble, the law suit boomeranged into a giant mistake for Rich Uncle Pennybags, like trading Baltic for the Boardwalk even-steven.
True, we had to take the smug symbol of riches all the way to the United States Supreme Court before we prevailed, enduring six years of being banned from the market and having 40,000 of our games buried in a garbage dump as an arrogant but ill-fated object lesson to other challengers of the Monopoly monopoly. All that's described in the book but another big part of it tells how the law suit stimulated me to check out the background of Monopoly and how I was almost squashed by the skeletons which started to rattle out of the closet. My detective work wasn't as easy as winning Monopoly when you own the good properties because I was up against a mom and apple pie legend about the origins of Monopoly. Central casting in this epic tale was the rags to riches story of a man named Charles Darrow, a supposedly gutsy victim of the Great Depression who invented Monopoly to feed his pregnant wife and kids but was then catapulted into countless riches as the creator of the most popular, privately-owned board game in history.
One mystery phone call on a TV show triggered the hunt which eventually unmasked our hero as an impostor and proved that the whole legend was a corporate- sponsored fraud fabricated to save the business from bankruptcy. I also discovered that Parker Brother's Monopoly was based on a folkgame named monopoly which had been originated by a woman, Elizabeth Magie. Not only that but it had been played on personalized, homemade boards all over the eastern United States for twenty-three years before our folk hero arranged to become a proud papa.
The Monopoly in your closet is the Atlantic City version of this folkgame. It was created by some ingenious Quakers who taught school in Atlantic City. Apart from some designs made by a graphic artist, Darrow's sole contribution to the invention was to copy the Quakers' creation with the faithfulness of a medieval monk transcribing a sacred text. The original work was then suppressed as part of a business scheme to dump Monopoly's real world competition and the nation's media, from Sports Illustrated to The New York Times was conned into trumpeting the fake story.
Yes, ironically enough, the game in which players rip off tenants and utility users and dump competing players right off the board with their monopoly muscle was itself illegally monopolized by means of a fraudulent patent monopoly. And the engineers of the fraud laughed all the way to the bank as they raked in monopoly profits and gouged you and me for a cool billion dollars. And nobody knew about it until Monopoly decided to push Anti-Monopoly off the market--and this book came to be written.
- Sales Rank: #6665232 in Books
- Published on: 2010-06-24
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.50" h x .70" w x 5.51" l, .88 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 312 pages
Amazon.com Review
Part detective novel, part history, and part horror story, The Billion Dollar Monopoly� Swindle not only recounts the true history behind one of the world's most popular board games but also reveals a world where the law sometimes seems as arbitrary and unfair as a "Go directly to jail" card. When Ralph Anspach released his game Anti-Monopoly in 1973, he suddenly found himself in the crosshairs of the formidable Parker Brothers legal machine, which claimed that his use of the word monopoly violated copyright laws. While conducting research to gauge the strength of Parker Brothers' case, Anspach discovered that the corporate giant might not even have the rights to the game.
His investigation revealed the existence of a board game called the Landlord's Game that had been played at least 30 years before Parker Brothers published Monopoly in 1935. When Charles B. Darrow was introduced to this game by a group of Quakers, he copied their board and rules verbatim (even duplicating their misspelling of "Marvin Gardens"), then sold it as his own creation. Parker Brothers supported him, putting a copy of the "story of Monopoly" that cited him as creator in every box.
As for the Anti-Monopoly case, Anspach faced down the game moguls in a battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court (and included an unexpected appearance by future independent counsel Kenneth Starr). You can still play Anti-Monopoly today--and Anspach has even started packaging the original version in the game boxes as a bonus. --Matthew Baldwin
Review
Written in detective story fashion. . . the professor reconstructed the . . .fraud that Darrow and his Parker Brothers sponsors perpetrated: buying up rival patents, intimidating would be imitators, rewriting history. Anspach has blazed a trail (and) written a great cautionary tale against the trust we too often repose in public relations hype. . .belongs in every summer cottage that now contains a game of Monopoly (or Anti-Monopoly). By far the fullest version yet of a battle that illuminates key elements of American business history from the populism of the 1980s to the . . .1980's. (Anspach) was always something of a swashbucklera teenage refugee from Hitler's Germany who fought for America in the Pacific, then surreptitiously shipped out to Israel for its 1948 war of independence. . ..(He also relates) his early startup difficulties, the search for evidence, the court battles. -- David Warsh, Boston Sunday Globe, August 16, 1998
Excerpt. � Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
ONE A Strange Phone Conversation
It's August 20, 1974. I'm sitting in a television studio on a sweltering day in Portland, Oregon flogging the Anti-Monopoly game I had invented about three years earlier. . . The game company I had created for my Anti-Monopoly game was pushing me into these publicity tours to regenerate our sales because Parker Brothers' legal assault had melted down our purchase orders from about a million to 30,000. It was a public television interview program with listener call-ins. . .
A Mrs. Stevenson joined us. "First of all Dr. Anspach, I hate to date myself with a story going back all the way to the mid-thirties, but I think Parker Brothers has a lot of nerve suing you for getting a free ride on their game when they stole monopoly in the first place."
"They what it?" I said and paused, afraid even to breathe her word since I didn't want a libel suit slapped on us. We were having enough trouble with the other one. After all, I, like everybody else in the world, knew exactly how Monopoly had been invented and theft had nothing to do with it. On the contrary, what had happened was one of the best-known chronicles of Yankee ingenuity and well-rewarded initiative.
This inspirational real-life story was found on every instruction sheet inserted into every Monopoly box so that people could dream of the real wealth to be earned in this land of opportunity as they played with make-believe Monopoly money. And if the players missed the story on the rules, they got a chance to read all about it in its perennial retelling in newspapers, magazine articles, and books, or to hear about it on radio and TV shows.
The hero was Charles B. Darrow, a Philadelphian who had lost his job in the Great Depression which caused terrible hardship to his pregnant wife and little son. But Darrow did not despair or look for welfare handouts. One evening, Darrow sat down at his kitchen table and "devised out of thin air" a game in which people could fantasize about riches no longer attainable during this collapse of our capitalist system. . . Parker Brothers. . . licensed the game from him--and the best selling board game in history was launched. A grateful corporation rewarded this real life Horatio Alger so generously that "he would soon be able to retire for life at the age of 46 and become a millionaire gentleman farmer, world traveler--especially to ancient cities--motion picture photographer, and collector of exotic orchid species."
Having refreshed my memory, I went on a little testily. "Whatever gives you that idea? Somebody Darrow invented Monopoly and he worked with Parker Brothers".
"Of course," added the host approvingly. "During the Great Depression."
"He stole it," Mrs. Stevenson persisted. "I had a good friend in college who was one of the few women of her day to become an aeronautical engineer. She swore to me that her father and friends had created the exact same Monopoly game now sold by Parker Brothers, Atlantic City street names and all ."
The host of the show passed me a piece of paper on which he had written in big block letters "Careful!!!! Libel. Kook." I nodded to him and moved on cautiously. "Fascinating. Can you remember any more details about your friend's story?"
"Well, I can tell you one thing. My friend was a real sober person. Remember, she majored in engineering, but whenever Parker Brothers had something in the papers about that Darrow person, she would practically throw a fit about Parker Brothers working in cahoots with that con-man."
The host, an inveterate note writer, wrote in bigger block letters: "MORE CONSPIRACY THEORIES. SAY ALLEGED FOR GOD'S SAKES."
"Can you remember anything else about your friend's alleged invention story, Mrs. Stevenson?" I prompted.
"Anything else? Let's see now. She said it happened in the early thirties, when she was just a little girl, but she could recall very clearly watching her father and his friends working out the details of the game. And even then they called it monopoly, though that was quite a bit before Darrow and Parker Brothers arrived on the scene."
"Do you recollect your friend's name, by any chance?" I asked, thinking of how I should get her social security number, current address and the number of her drivers license--just in case Stevenson wasn't a kook after all.
"Of course I remember her name. Lord, I don't think I'll ever forget Joanna. She was a real whiz kid, that gal."
"Go on," I pressed her. "Joanna who. . .?"
"Oh, well, that's another matter. She's been married and remarried several times and I've lost track of her so I couldn't possibly know her last name. But I can tell you she'd be about fifty right now, and she graduated from NYU where they had a special wartime program to train women as aeronautical engineers, what with all the men being away in the army. But I'm afraid that's all I can tell you about her."
The host had had enough. "This makes no sense to me, Mrs. Stevenson. Just for starters, if the game was stolen from Joanna's friends and family, why didn't they complain to Parker Brothers, a very reputable company, or haul Darrow to court so they could get back the millions you claim did not belong to Mr. Darrow."
This stopped her for only a moment. "Right you are. I remember asking Joanna the exact same question. She said part of the reason was a religion thing. They were Quakers and you know the way Quakers are; they're very peaceful and they don't like to quarrel in court."
"Not very likely," I thought while the host shook his head in disbelief. She pretty well lost me at this point.
Still, I jotted down the information about Joanna No-name. You never know. Then I schlepped on to Seattle, the next stop on my publicity tour.
Most helpful customer reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Fascinating and Original
By imarlowe@sirius.com
I found this book riveting and very well-written, a startling indictment of not only Parker Brothers (for claiming false invention of a 30-year old folk game and securing a fraudulent patent)but also of the American judicial system, which clearly will roll over and play dead when confronted with an army of corporate lawyers. While the earlier book by Saxon does discuss a precursor to Monopoly, it says nothing about Parker Brothers' underhanded dealings. Nor does it tell the story of how the game fell into the hands of "inventor" Charles Darrow. Another book on the subject by Orbanes (written essentially by and for Parker Bothers/Hasbro) is merely an attempt to whitewash the whole sticky mess so delightfully uncovered by Mr. Anspach. A fine and fascinating read.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Brilliant book !
By tom@kuchenbrod.de
Have just read Dr Anspach's book from cover to cover without a break. A fascinating expose of what must rank as one of the biggest cover- up stories of all time.
Mr Blub's review is correct in that Saxton's earlier book does report that Lizzie Magie's 1904 Landlords Game was a forerunner to Monopoly. It contains nothing however about the transformation of that game through the monopoly folklore to the Darrow/Parker Bros Atlantic City copy. Nor does it contain anything about the cover- up which has served so well to monopolise Monopoly for so many years.
The book is a product of Dr Anspach's detective work which was validated by the American Courts and is to be commended in stark contrast to the corporate sanctioned Orbanes book. This offering attempts to preserve some credit for Darrow while erroneously( albeit cleverly) exonerating Parker Bros from the swindle.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
A thrilling detective story debunking an American myth.
By sreiss@ibm.net
Anyone who loves Monopoly(R), like I do, and thinks they know the story of the game, like I did, will not be able to put this book down! The official story of the game's origin is a lie. For me, the crushing piece of evidence concerns the correct spelling of MarvEn Gardens. Check it out.
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