San Francisco-based jewelry artist Sidney Mobell transforms everyday items into dazzling gold and jeweled artworks. This stunning, one of a kind gold Monopoly set is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world`s most valuable board game, with an estimated value of $2 million. Mobell designed the set in 1988 for the World Monopoly tournament in London, and British Prime Minister Edward Heath was photographed with it at the opening ceremonies. The entire playing board is plated with 24-karat gold. All of the pieces and cards are made of solid 18-karat gold. Precious gemstones correspond with the original Monopoly property colors and—appropriately—the houses are crowned with emeralds and the hotels are topped with rubies. Even the paper money contains genuine gold—it gets its golden color from real gold dust. The set was later donated, along with 18 of Mobell`s other works, to the Smithsonian Institution, where it became a part of the permanent collection at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. It has been on loan to the Museum of American Finance, a Smithsonian affiliate museum, since 2010.
