Casino Chips

MrEureka · January 24, 2019 12:07PM

I started collecting them about 25 years ago and quit after about two years. Sold most for a big loss and kept a few of the best as souvenirs. Now I’m thinking about getting back into it. Does anyone here collect them seriously? Has much changed in the past 20+ years ?

Gluggo · January 24, 2019 12:09PM

Sorry you sold them, I have some but their not the real chip from the Hotel just imitation from one of the old torn down casino El Rancho At least they were nothing special 20 years ago but now who knows. Their my keep sake along with my full 20' Crap table lay out from the Flamingo layed out in my Man Cave office on the wall!

habaraca · January 24, 2019 12:16PM

I have a bunch I would like to part with... mostly 80's and 90's California and west coast card rooms... as well as some old Vegas.....
sample

Gluggo · January 24, 2019 12:24PM

habaraca nice chips, I see you got a Barbary Coast in Vegas, what a sweat joint that place is. I worked there for about 1 month on the Crap table never seen such mean Box and Floor men in my life. You would think it was their money they were loosing when one of the customers gets lucky throwing them dice! Glad I am done with that life. But nice chips.

oih82w8 · January 24, 2019 12:31PM

They are interesting, but I only have one $1 "token/clad dollar" from Sam's Town, Las Vegas, that I picked up in 89'.

COINS MAKE CENTS · January 24, 2019 1:12PM

I know I sell tons of them at shows!

ElmerFusterpuck · January 24, 2019 1:34PM

Cool stuff. I casually collect them from casino stops and have picked up quite a few over the years. They are fun souvenirs. From what I've seen, the chips from the old popular but long gone hotels do have some value (like the Sands, Desert Inn, Stardust) and others are just shot glass coasters.

JBK · January 24, 2019 2:37PM

I have exactly three. All gifts from other people.

Two of the silver commem chips that are spit out of special slot machines, and one chip commemorating a toy train convention in one of the Vegas hotels years ago.

They are legitimate collectibles, but I already have plenty of other stuff to deal with.

OGDan · January 24, 2019 5:25PM

Curious what the pops are like for these, and how well known/understood the populations are. We’re these commonly saved over the years?

MrEureka · January 24, 2019 6:41PM

@OriginalDan said:
Curious what the pops are like for these, and how well known/understood the populations are. We’re these commonly saved over the years?

Like coins, most are quite common, but there are also real rarities. The tricky part is that it's not that unusual for hoards to surface, sometimes for a chip that was previously considered a rarity. And when they surface, it's rarely made public. Instead, they're marketed one by one, for big money, until the secret gets out. At least that was my experience when I collected. I decided back then that if I couldn't stay on top of things and become a real insider, collecting chips was a sucker's bet. But at this point, 20+ years later, I wonder if most of the hoards have been discovered and dispersed, or if the game is still pretty much the same.

breakdown · January 24, 2019 9:10PM

I love threads like this. It somehow makes me feel better when I see that dealers suffer from the same OCD collector gene that afflicts me.

I mean casino chips?
Okay I have thought about starting a collection.
Along with:
Different beer cans and/or bottles
Logo golf balls (this one is downright silly)
Golf ball markers (slightly less silly)
License plates
Versions of PCGS population reports - the historical data, just think of it!
Typewriters - these would present a problem re: storage space
Dollar bills with particular serial numbers (I know currency collectors care but is there any logic to it?)

ricko · January 25, 2019 9:38AM

I collected them for a while about 12-15 years ago... I mainly looked for the ones with the silver center.... Have not looked at them for a while, they are in one of my coin cabinets. I used to see them at coin shows in the Seattle area....not a lot, just a table or two. Being a poker player and a Blackjack player, they remind me of the old days at the tables. Cheers, RickO

Downtown1974 · January 25, 2019 1:04PM

MrEureka, I found this last night putting some supplies away. If you’re going to start adding to your collection I would be happy to send this to you. PM me your address and I’ll get it to you.

topstuf · January 25, 2019 1:23PM

The bane of my shop was those silver thingies from casinos. Didn't know diddly about em and it was during the heyday when EVERYONE wanted them.

Grrrrrr!!!

rte592 · January 25, 2019 1:54PM

Check out https://www.silverstrikers.com/index.php/
And yes I have a few odd chips.

topstuf · January 25, 2019 2:06PM

That's IT. Silver STRIKES! Grrrrrr

Timbuk3 · January 25, 2019 10:50PM

Interesting thread !!!

ttown · January 26, 2019 4:30AM

Mine won't fit in the slots

Bigpoppas · January 26, 2019 5:18AM

Here’s a beauty that I found while metal detecting .. lol
Only one I ever found detecting in all of my years in AC as the only ones with metal in them are speed cheques (center). Harrahs was the only casino in AC to use that style and they even don’t use them anymore .

Chip collecting heyday was in the mid 90’s as they gained popularity and many casinos were releasing commemorative chips in hopes you would take them home with you . The chase was on and people were hoarding them with some taking off in value .
I played poker professionally and was a member of the AC chip club for a some years, so I saw it all first hand . The club still exists , but the base isn’t like before as the commemorative chips and silver strikes stopped and the chance for a quick flip also did .
Most collectors seemed to concentrate on a region like Calif, Nevada and AC, but some traded in all including European, Cuban and the other casinos popping up as time went on .
Me Eureka got a lot of things right in that hoards of racks were discovered devaluing many different Vegas casinos and Playboy in AC was hard hit after they found thousands of them buried while digging, many years after it had closed .

There are a ton of cool designs and some still fetch a good price, but in general the market took a big hit years ago .
There’s a guy on the internet that carries just about everything if you want to see approximate retail value . I think his name is something like ALL CHIPS if you google it.

I sold most of my collection years ago, but still have some really neat ones and my wife still has her entire collection .

Archie Black wrote a book on all AC and pre casino NJ releases, so I’m sure somebody probably did the same for Nevada and Calif .

They are still a fun collectible in my opinion and some of the Chipco designs are outstanding .

Happy collecting .

Now that I think about , the Borgata chip shown may have a metal inlay under the center sticker - probably how I found it 🤔

Rampage · January 26, 2019 5:56AM

I have a few from Binion's casino, Golden Nugget, and a couple of others, but I never cared what their value was. I always thought they were neat. Good luck getting back into it!

Bigpoppas · January 26, 2019 6:25AM

Here is a small lot I had in a baggie of early and no longer existing AC chips that I was going to put on the Bay . Also a Trump Plaza $1 and an early Resorts International $2.50

CCGGG · January 26, 2019 6:42AM

I do have a handful of casino chips and a bunch of dollar slot tokens. I collected all the slots tokens back in the day (not so long ago) when they still used them. I actually have them in a coin album made specifically for casino tokens. I can take a picture of the album/tokens and post it here if anyone is interested. My favorite slot token is from the Playboy Club in Atlantic City and my favorite casino chip is from the Balinese Room that "was" in Galveston Tx.

WillieBoyd2 · January 26, 2019 6:50AM

Reno Nevada Mapes Hotel-Casino chip from the early 1960's:

Mapes Hotel-Casino Reno five dollar chip
Blue plastic, 39mm, 10.62gm
Two people in western dress
Hotel Mapes / CASINO / RENO $5 NEVADA

The Mapes Hotel and Casino opened in 1947 in Reno, Nevada. It was the first hotel-casino combination in the country. It closed in 1982 due to competition from larger and more modern casinos. The building was torn down in 2000.

Chips similar to the one above appear in the 1961 CBS television program "Route 66" episode "Eleven The Hard Way".

Mapes Casino table with silver dollars and chips

thebeav · January 26, 2019 7:21AM

@topstuf said:
The bane of my shop was those silver thingies from casinos. Didn't know diddly about em and it was during the heyday when EVERYONE wanted them.

Those centers were 6/10 ths of an ounce and they popped out easily. I made some decent money on these back in the day.

sparky64 · January 26, 2019 8:08AM

I don't collect them but I can see the attraction.

The collector side of me felt the need to keep a few from AC when I was there in the mid 1980's.

CCGGG · January 27, 2019 7:50AM

This thread made me dig these out of the bottom of my safe. (Not sure why I even have them in a safe since their value is almost zero, but that's were they were.) I probably haven't handled or even seen these in more than 5 years.

The first two chips are from the Balinese Room that "was" located in Galveston Texas on a pier that stretched out ~600 ft over the Gulf of Mexico from the seawall. (I know the red one came from the Balinese room and was "told" the blue one did too.) It's was a night club and illegal casino that operated back in the 30's, 40's, and well into the 50's before it was shut down by the Texas Rangers. (Not the baseball club. It was totally destroyed by Hurricane IKE in 2008. Interesting history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balinese_Room

Then I found this old casino Dollar Token folder... It has about 5 pages of tokens like the one shown in the picture.

DCW · January 28, 2019 7:46PM

Here's my one and only casino chip:

Found it on the ground shortly after the invasion

Casino Chips

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