One Man’s Jumbo Monopoly Set Is Another Man’s New Computer

The general rule for getting new toys at my house is that I must purchase the new and shiny using the proceeds from the sale of older toys. This allows me to buy fun things without guilt and generally keeps me from collecting too much crap.  The downside is that most of my toys involve technology in some way and decrease in value over time.  This leaves me with a general shortage of fun money when the urge to buy kicks in.

Enter the need for a new computer.

My workhorse PC is now 8 years old and due for replacement.  A modest new computer would be totally appropriate to purchase out of normal household expenses. However, if the next one has to last another 8 years, then I want to start off with a screaming, fire-breathing, drool-inducing rig worthy of legend.  That, and I want to play the newfangled games that all of the cool kids play.

So, once again I begin shambling distractedly around my house, looking intently at my personal possessions and mumbling “I wonder what I could get for that on eBay?”  After decent headway is made towards my new computer, I find myself short, so I enter another round of shambling, mumbling, and calculating. On one particular jaunt into the basement, I spy a rug rolled up in a corner, and there I find the next victim in my selling spree.

The following collection is my homemade Jumbo Monopoly Set, circa 1998.  It was sort of a compulsive endeavor, starting with a pewter Monopoly token paperweight.  Then I bought a few more tokens and stumbled across the rug – a 6.5 foot square Monopoly board rug which is almost exactly to scale with the tokens.  It was all downhill from there. Many hours of scanning, layout, and printing brought forth all of the Money, Chance, Community Chest, and Deed cards to play a giant game of Monopoly. Throw in a pair of oversized novelty dice and some wooden blocks to stand in as houses/hotels and I was good to go. (I had actual plans to make scale buildings as well, but never got that far)

Now, it’s all going up on eBay.

It was fun to put it all together, but I have to admit that it’s probably the closest I’ve come to being compulsive about a project.

You see, I don’t really enjoy playing Monopoly.

monopoly_01_tn monopoly_02_tn1 monopoly_03_tn1 monopoly_04_tn1

3 thoughts on “One Man’s Jumbo Monopoly Set Is Another Man’s New Computer

  • jay

    I honestly don’t remember. I’m sure it was some novelty store like Spencers or similar. A quick google search for “large 1.25 inch white dice” came back with several results for novelty dice for sale. I actually have four still laying around the house which are headed for the yardsale pile.

  • Carl Hoff

    Thanks. I was looking at that image and guessing those dice were bigger then that. I too got a Monopoly rug years ago with the hopes of doing this one day and I thought I had calculated you’d need 2 inch dice to be in the correct scale. Like I said this was years ago so maybe I should recheck that calculation. If the 4 you have are the same size as those pictured here let me know what you’d like for them.

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