monopoly tokens

One of my favorite things about Monopoly more than the game itself is the tokens. Since childhood I remember my whole family used to play quite bit, or just me and my sisters. I don’t ever remember winning much, but I always enjoyed playing and think that the Top hat was my first choice token, race car, then Scottie dog.

There’s a vast Wikipedia entry on Monopoly and I find it very interesting that over time certain tokens are retired. I know there’s a few missing from this batch I bought on ebay – the iron, and sack of money. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen the lantern, purse or rocking horse. In 2013 new tokens include a robot, guitar and cat, and the locomotive comes with a special edition.

Since the tokens are quite small, I had to use a 100 mm macro lens. I set up one light (beauty dish) with the diffuser at 375 watts (above the scene pointing down) and bounced the light to an angled white reflector. I moved the camera around quite a bit and shot many angles – some shots I had the lens on the white table as low as I could go. The results to me are pleasing, being able to see the detail in the casting in an object known to be so small.

One of the things that I really enjoy is how iconic these random objects are – we know what they are from just seeing one or two and the rest falls into place – thanks to memory. I’m pretty sure that Monopoly is rather tight with its licensing – you just can’t exploit someone else’s intellectual property – so these images are for vanity only, unless they can be changed somehow for the context of fine art.