Gay Monopoly : a celebration of gay life!

West Hollywood, CA : The Parker Sisters, Division of Fire Island Games, Inc., [1983]. Board game in the original box, 26 x 51 x 4 cm, as new in shrink-wrap, complete as issued; the contents (of which our images show components from an already opened example of the game) include the illustrated game board, card tray housing instruction booklet, and (based on the other complete example we have had previously) 6 tokens, 2 dice, 30 Ollie’s Bar tokens, 12 bathhouses, 21 Family Pride cards, 16 Manhipulation cards, 28 property title cards, 31 Ollie’s Sleaze Bag cards, complete bank of “In Gays We Trust” play money ($1×21, $3×40, $10×20, $20×40, $50×40, $100×21, $500×20); a rare board game which is almost impossible to find unopened and in such fine condition.

A fabulous celebration of gay life in the early eighties styled on the world’s most popular family board game.

In 1983 the ‘Parker Sisters’ published this pirated version of Parker Brother’s game of Monopoly, with ‘Profits donated to AIDS Research and Support groups’ (quote from the box). The Sisters were promptly sued by the Brothers and for nearly forty years Gay Monopoly has been coming out of the closet for a queer take on the classic board game. The game board features a large illustration by Tom of Finland, and bears his printed signature. The publishers paid Tom of Finland a licensing fee for the use of his image in the design of the game. It is a notable example of Tom’s imagery being used in an authorised manner for a commercially produced object, at a time when there was mass piracy of his artworks.

We thank Durk Dehner, Founder, Tom of Finland Foundation for his assistance in confirming the authorised involvement of Tom of Finland in this publication.

Collections:

Duke University

University of Colorado

Stanford University