...I found some pretty cool Millennium Items!
This is the Standard Millennium Edition of Monopoly. Parker Brothers also published a Collector’s Edition, which came in an embossed tin and featured a pair of uniquely-shaped dice and “stackable” houses and hotels (later reused in the Pokémon Edition), but I do not have this in my collection at the moment. One day...
As you can see in this image, the box is lightly battered, as if it had sustained damage in storage. The board (not pictured) has one or two water or grease stains on it, but it’s otherwise perfectly serviceable. I’m also missing a few of the tokens, but the houses, hotels, money, deed cards, Chance/Community Chest cards, and instruction manual are all present and accounted for. At five dollars, it was a bargain. I never thought I’d actually put one into the Museum, but there it is.
UPDATE, 3/5/13: I decided to take another look at game, this time for detail. The most striking thing about the game (well, the Standard Edition, anyway) is its more overt display of personal materialism and "living the high life." In place of the original New Jersey streets and properties, you have things like "Ski Equipment," "Trip to Far East," "Estate in the Country," and "Ski Chalet." There's something a little disturbing in that, to me--with the original, real estate-based game, one could find a higher purpose in the wheeling and dealing in the name of giving someone a place to live, and helping someone else while making money. In contrast, the 2000 board is all about uplifting one's own self with mere baubles.
Two things date the game slightly: "Ski Equipment" and "Premier Golf Equipment" are still purple (this was changed to brown for some reason), and "Income Tax" still says "Pay 10% or $200." Now it's just "Pay $200."
UPDATE, 3/5/13: I decided to take another look at game, this time for detail. The most striking thing about the game (well, the Standard Edition, anyway) is its more overt display of personal materialism and "living the high life." In place of the original New Jersey streets and properties, you have things like "Ski Equipment," "Trip to Far East," "Estate in the Country," and "Ski Chalet." There's something a little disturbing in that, to me--with the original, real estate-based game, one could find a higher purpose in the wheeling and dealing in the name of giving someone a place to live, and helping someone else while making money. In contrast, the 2000 board is all about uplifting one's own self with mere baubles.
Two things date the game slightly: "Ski Equipment" and "Premier Golf Equipment" are still purple (this was changed to brown for some reason), and "Income Tax" still says "Pay 10% or $200." Now it's just "Pay $200."
The Chance and Community Chest cards go mostly unchanged, which means the "improve your property cards" make no sense. Perhaps most worryingly, the "Get Out of Jail Free" card now reads: "Discover Legal Technicality--Get Out of Jail Free." My philosophy is, if you do right, you're guaranteed to avoid punishment. Legal technicalities are just easy get-outs that perpetuate wrongdoing, and it's something that I think is changing nowadays.
Overall, the game advertises itself as "The Millennium Edition," but it still has a very 90s sensibility to it. For me, growing up in the 90s was a bunch of kids flaunting their brand-new toys and competing over whose was newer, flashier, and better, and the game board is the "grown-up" version of that. At any rate, it still captures the zeitgeist of the 1999/2000 era.
This Beanie Baby was “born” on July 4, and it has a “2000 Edition” decal on its tag (inset).
I bought it from a woman who didn’t think she had any Millennium Beanie Babies within her stall. She was just as surprised as I when I produced this one from the bottom of a large box.
These party favors are an oddity, as they’re meant to be used on New Year’s Eve and disposed of the next day. I have here two variations: Round and Oblong. In my experience, they probably came in a wider variety of colors. You’d think such a thing would have a simple, easily-destroyed sticker on the top, but the words are molded into the top half. They’re very well made for mere disposables.
March 3, 1999: Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones set out to circumnavigate the world in a hot-air balloon. They succeeded, setting ground on March 21 of the same year.
March 3, 2000: United States special envoy Harry Johnston visits Sudan for the first time.
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