Playing with money:
currency and games
Past exhibition
18 April – 29 September 2019
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This exhibition looked at how modern board games, educational toys, gambling and role-playing games reflected and shaped our understanding of economics and money.
The 20th century witnessed the transformation of money from precious metals to paper, from credit cards to crypto-currencies, all against a fluctuating financial backdrop. These changes are chronicled in the evolution of childhood games from the 19th century to the present.
Visitors discovered new acquisitions of toy and board game money, including recognisable classics such as Monopoly, as well as notes from other games. Many had economic themes and covered subjects from buying and selling paintings, investing in railways to playing the stock market. Often they commented on society and economics: Class Struggle is a Marxist critique of capitalism, Ratrace satirises consumerism and Black Friday is a comment on the 2008 financial crash.
Elsewhere in the exhibition, a fully stocked toy shop from the 1930s and decimalisation games from the 1960s, reminded us that playing with money is essential for understanding how the world works. The exhibition playfully examined how the skills and experiences we acquire in our formative years inform our adult lives.
