Most expensive modern board game sold at auction

The most expensive modern board game sold at auction is a hand-drawn prototype of Monopoly, put together by Charles Darrow (USA) for Parker Brothers in 1933. This complete set, which includes more than 200 pieces including player tokens, cardboard hotels, banknotes and chance cards, was purchased by the Strong National Museum of Play (USA) for $146,500 at Sotheby's New York on 17 December 2010.

The set was offered for sale along with other items from the collection of American multimillionaire Malcolm Forbes (1919-1990), who had a lifelong interest in toys, models and games. It is a fascinating artefact of Monopoly's controversial and contested history, which has its origins in a game called The Landlord's Game, patented by American writer and activist Elizabeth Magie Phillips in 1906.

Magie Phillips' original concept was a game designed to explain and promote a progressive political movement called Georgism, which was focused on replacing all income-based taxation with a single tax on land and natural resources, which could then be used to provide a sort of universal basic income. The idea was for people to play two versions of the game, one with the rules of Georgism applied and one where one player will inevitably create a monopoly and bankrupt everyone else.

The Landlord's Game achieved some limited success, particularly with college students, but the general consensus was that this educational game – while interesting – was just not very fun. Players began modifying the rules and creating new board layouts, and these many "home-brew" variations on the original game – known by names such as "Monopoly", "Finance" or "Auction" – spread to communities all over the United States.

Charles Darrow first encountered one of these Landlord's Game variants in 1932, by which time it seems that the game's connection to Magie Phillips's original had been largely forgotten. He made some minor amendments to the design of the game he'd played, and sold the concept to Parker Brothers in 1935 as his own invention.

Although the game, now titled Monopoly, was an immediate hit, its complex origins also set off years of legal controversies involving Parker Brothers, Darrow, Magie Phillips and various other companies and inventors who believed they had some claim to the game.