Uncle Pennybags

 I love when my many worlds collide. If you have spent anytime with me in the last year you know that I'm a discount shopper. Dollar General is one of my favorite stores, I love following their sales and hidden clearance. While I've been trying to cut back, I do watch the youtube videos and I'm a member of several facebook groups dedicated soley to Dollar General deals. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that Monopoly and all yellow dot toys were on 90% off clearance. Having been writing my Monopoly blog for month's I was already aware that the Roselle location had the Cats vs Dogs Edition and the Cranford location had the LOL Suprise Edition. In one day I hit 3 stores and was able to purchase 3 Cat vs Dogs, 2 LOL Surprise, and 6 Rivals Edition. So, are you wondering what I'll be doing with these games? I'm also wondering the same thing.  I definitely regret donating the other versions of the games I had written about. I was soley looking to save space. I nev

       Recently while discussing my Monopoly blog with a friend, she compared Monopoly to The Game of Life. I had a lot of questions about this comparison, considering I'd never actually played Life (for short). As a child we had a limited selection of games at home. I owned playing cards, chess, checkers, Chinese checkers, Scrabble and Monopoly. Other popular games were known to me, but I have never actually played them.  While my friend insisted that this game was some how derived from Monopoly, my research has proved the opposite. The Game of Life was created in 1860 by Milton Bradley, it was called The Checkered Game of Life. The game simulates a person's travels through life. Wikipedia describes game play as: The game board resembled a modified checkerboard. The object was to land on "good" spaces and collect 100 points. A player could gain 50 points by reaching "Happy Old Age" in the upper-right corner, opposite "Infancy" where one began. Ins

The original concept for Monopoly was invented by Elizabeth (Lizzie) Magie in 1903. Her game was called The Landlords game . It featured a square board with properties, rotating around the board more then once, buying properties and renting them out. Originaly the game was created to highlight the negative aspects of monopolies. Lizzie Magie was an Georgist/anti-monopolist and hoped to show that land grabbing and expansion would only benefit land owners while the rest of the population lived in poverty.  Originally Lizzie's game came with two sets of rules. There were anti-monopolist rules in which everyone was rewarded when wealth was created and monopolist rules where players were rewarded for creating monopolies and pushing opponents out of the market. Unfortunately, the monopolist rules set was the one that gain popularity. For many years Charles Darrow had been incorrectly credited as the inventor of Monopoly. The real story is that he took an already existing game and put his

There are a handful of Monopoly Editions I consider to be apart of American Pop culture history, they are Americana.  Game play for these is the same as standard Monopoly. The names of spaces, tokens, art work, and box are based on famous American figures/companies.   I Love Lucy Monopoly Betty Boop World Tour Opoly Elvis Monopoly Coca Cola Monopoly QuickTrip Quikopoly (old gas station chain) John Wayne Monopoly

I found this Monopoly Mad Libs selling on Amazon for just $4.99. This is another gem that appeals to kids, teens and adults alike. It's 48 pages long, so I'm assuming somewhere around 40 Mad Libs to complete. Most of us will remember Mad Libs from our childhood. These are short stories with blank lines found through out the story. Before reading the selection you are asked to pick a series of words. They maybe nouns, verbs, adjectives, proper names, etc. This is listed as an educational tool, it helps improve grammar. Aside from the educational aspect, Mad Libs is ment to be funny. By adding words before reading the story, the results are akward and hillarious. Make sure to use a pencil when filling in the book, because you will want to re-use with many friends to get different results. If I do end up playing this "word game." I will write an updated post. In 2017 Fully Baked Ideas released Adult Mad Libs: The Game. This is ment for ages 18+ and up to 8 players. This

  I spotted this activity book at my local Dollar General. It includes stickers, coloring pages and some other simple activities like a maze, etc. The price on this was $3.50 and definitely worth it. This appeals to both kids, teens and adults. I'm sure you're aware that adults use coloring books to destress and unwind.  My tip for books like these is to make photo copies of the pages. Then you can try multiple color schemes. You can even have a little party, where everyone gets to put there own twist on the same pictures. Lastly these pages would look nice colored and then framed. I imagine them in a kids bedroom or a home office to keep us motivated. Always hustling, as Mr. Monopoly would remind us.

 June 2013 is the half way point of my one year Monopoly blog. I'm happy to report that I have covered most of the games I set out to research and write about in January 2023.  What is left to cover? It seems I've left the more complicated games for last. I still hope to write about Finance, Easy Money, and the origins of Monopoly. My almost completed list is below. I do feel a sense of accomplishment. I'm hoping to get these articles in by the end of June. Then I will spend the remainder of the year continuing to write about Monopoly, but I hope to shift my main focus onto other vintage board games I've found while thrifting. I also hope to spot light the Monopoly card games which turned out to be my absolute favorites. I hope to cover: Finance by Parker Brothers 1932 Easy Money by Milton Bradley Company 1935 Add Stock Exchange by Parker Brothers 1937 Game of Rich Uncle by Parker Brothers 1946 Advance to Boardwalk by Parker Brothers 1985 Free Parking by Parker Brothers