structural:scholar_edition, stylistic:style_transfer
Classic

Each player is represented by a small metal or plastic token that is moved around the edge of the board according to the roll of two six-sided dice. The number of tokens (and the tokens themselves) have changed over the history of the game with many appearing in special editions only, and some available with non-game purchases. After prints with wood tokens in 1937, a set of eight tokens was introduced. Two more were added in late 1937, and tokens changed again in 1942. During World War II, the game tokens were switched back to wood. Early localized editions of the standard edition (including some Canadian editions, which used the U.S. board layout) did not include pewter tokens but instead had generic wooden pawns identical to those that Sorry! had.

Many of the early tokens were created by companies such as Dowst Miniature Toy Company, which made metal charms and tokens designed to be used on charm bracelets. The battleship and cannon were also used briefly in the Parker Brothers war game Conflict (released in 1940), but after the game failed on the market, the premade pieces were recycled for Monopoly usage. By 1943, there were ten tokens which included the Battleship, Boot, Cannon, Horse and rider, Iron, Racecar, Scottie Dog, Thimble, Top hat, and Wheelbarrow. These tokens remained the same until the late 1990s, when Parker Brothers was sold to Hasbro.

In 1998, a Hasbro advertising campaign asked the public to vote on a new playing piece to be added to the set. The candidates were a bag of money, a biplane, and a piggy bank. The bag ended up winning 51 percent of the vote compared to the other two which failed to go above 30%. This new token was added to the set in 1999, bringing the number of tokens to eleven. Another 1998 campaign poll asked people which monopoly token was their favorite. The most popular was the Race Car at 18%, followed by the Dog (16%), Cannon (14%) and Top Hat (10%). The least favorite in the poll was the Wheelbarrow, at 3%, followed by Thimble (7%) and the Iron (7%). The Cannon, and Horse and rider were both retired in 2000 with no new tokens taking their place. Another retirement came in 2007 with the sack of money, bringing the total token count back down to eight again.

In 2013, a similar promotional campaign was launched encouraging the public to vote on one of several possible new tokens to replace an existing one. The choices were a guitar, a diamond ring, a helicopter, a robot, and a cat. This new campaign was different from the one in 1998, as the least-popular existing piece would be retired and replaced with a new one. Both were chosen by a vote that ran on Facebook from January 8 to February 5, 2013. The cat took the top spot with 31% of the vote, while the iron proved to be the least-popular classic piece and was swapped out for the cat. In January 2017, Hasbro placed the line of tokens in the regular edition with another vote which included a total of 64 options. The eight playable tokens at the time included the Battleship, Boot, Cat, Racecar, Scottie Dog, Thimble, Top hat, and Wheelbarrow. By March 17, 2017, Hasbro retired three additional tokens, namely the thimble, wheelbarrow, and boot; these were replaced by a penguin, a Tyrannosaurus and a rubber duck. In April 2022, it was announced that a previously retired token would return to Monopoly sets. The candidates for reintroduction were the wheelbarrow, thimble, iron, horse & rider, boot, and money bag. One existing token would also be dropped from the line-up. Based on the results of the vote, Hasbro announced that, starting in spring 2023, the T-Rex would be replaced by the Thimble in regular sets of Monopoly.

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