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All original monopoly pieces8/3/2023 The Monopoly tokens appear to be brittle, and not flexible, and crack and flake easily. Neoprene I remember as the kind of thing shoe soles are made from, a kind of synthetic hard rubber. The other vexing thing is the absence of other period items made of a similar material… or, at least, I haven’t found any yet myself. So even if the same process was used, or a similar one, it was something homegrown and likely done in the Northeastern US. In addition, it is pretty unlikely that the Monopoly pieces were made in Europe. So, whatever they did use to make it was certainly much lighter weight than what the Europeans used. I bought one of these off eBay, and found it was much heavier than the Monopoly pieces are. I had considered the idea of a connection with European composite figures a couple years ago. Duprene was later manufactured as Neoprene. Elastolin was a combination of sawdust, casein plastic (made from milk solids that were treated with formaldyhyde) and kaolin clay……another type of similar composition was called Lineol.Īlso– there is a possibility it was a composition based on synthetic elastic – the first was called Duprene and it was invented by a fellow from DuPont in April 1930 – he had such severe depression he committed suicide before he ever saw his invention marketed. The game piece looks to me to be a similar type of composition as a material dubbed Elastolin by the German company Hausser- who made toy soldiers, cowboys and indians, trees and a great assortment of animals out of the material. Eventually Hasbro bought them out ( I think… something like 1957 maybe). while attempting to invent celluloid – they had come up with a bunch of molding compounds and compositions that were successful in making dominos, game pieces, etc. It was founded by John Wesley Hyatt and his brothers Isaiah and Charles in the 1860s…. The Embossing Company of Albany was big on using compositions. Plastics technology was taking off during the Great Depression and there were all sorts of experimental compositions out there. 20th century plastics that can be ruled out are cellulose acetate, polystyrene, cast phenolics, neoprene, urea formaldehyde, acrylic, polyethylene or any type of vinyl or nylon. They are certainly NOT any of the 19th century plastics: rubber, gutta percha, vulcanite, shellac, casein or celluloid. She currently works repairing celluloid toys at her studio in Upper Jay and may be reached by email at: Composite Tokens (circa 1936-45)Īs far as the shaped animals and game tokens…. She has written and lectured extensively on the subject of early plastics and was involved in the making of the A&E Modern Marvels documentary, “The History of Plastics.” Julie is the co-author of the book Celluloid – A Collector’s Reference and Value Guide. Julie Pelletier Robinson, plastic historian, lives in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. Robinson, and is taken from that conversation. In 2008, we corresponded with a historian of early plastics, and what follows was written by Julie P. Parker Brothers literature referred to these as “Ivoroid.” While plastic houses and hotels are used in the least expensive Monopoly sets today, when first introduced, they came in the most expensive sets in both the US and UK in the late 1930s. Parker Brothers used similar game pieces in other games such as Conflict (1940). They reappeared in Monopoly sets during World War II. What collectors call “composite” Monopoly tokens first appeared in sets in 1936, and may have been introduced due to a shortage of the metal tokens which had been used. This post examines just what those early plastic game pieces were, what they are probably made of, and how they could have been made. Plastics are a commonplace part of everyday life, but were somewhat exotic in the mid-1930s when Monopoly was first commercialized. A set of 10 composite Monopoly tokens, in use from 1936 to 1945.
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