Casino Memorabilia
Showcased
Like irregular coins that
somehow escape from the U.S. Mint, production mistakes
garner a lot of the attention at a show like the
Casino Chip and Gaming Token Collectors Club.
Just ask Kingman, Ariz., resident Bob Hayden.
His collection is full of casino chip "errors,"
with at least one set that he considers to be priceless.
Hayden and hundreds of casino memorabilia aficionados
are in Las Vegas this week for the organization's
13th annual international convention and show at
the Riviera.
The club's show is one of the rare convention events
in Las Vegas that welcomes nonmembers, and admission
is $5 to see and swap casino chips, ash trays, dice,
playing cards -- anything with the name of a casino
on it. Saturday is the last day of the four-day
event.
"We'll have about 3,000 members from practically
every state and 11 foreign countries," said
convention chairman Jim Steffner. "But probably
about 4,000 people will come through and look at
the displays and do some trading."
The club got started with six members in 1988 and
has grown steadily as gaming has proliferated nationwide.
Van Nuys, Calif., collector Ernie Wheelden believes
the explosive growth of interest in poker has generated
a new generation of hobbyists interested in casino
memorabilia.
"If you're a resident of Las Vegas,"
Wheelden said, "I don't see how you can resist
it."
But it isn't just Las Vegas residents who latch
onto matchbooks, swizzle sticks and silverware.
Collectors nationwide have developed interests in
collecting casino paraphernalia with commercial
and tribal casinos opening all over the United States.
Among them is Hayden, who trades as "Oldmanchipper"
and collects a variety of casino chips and tokens.
Although he lives less than an hour away from the
gaming capital of the world, the prize of his casino
chip collection comes from a defunct Colorado casino
-- and it took a considerable amount of luck to
acquire it.
Hayden explained that the Gregory Street Casino
in Black Hawk, Colo., produced a series of $5 chips
with a goldpanner shown from the rear. The chips
had slices of the same goldpanner's image produced
on the edge of the chip; stack five of the chips
in the proper alignment and the image appears on
the side.
Among the 200 chip sets produced were seven errors
-- the same image was stamped on both sides of one
chip. Hayden got the opportunity to acquire half
of the 200 chip sets. What were the chances that
he could get errors that, when stacked, would produce
the image of the goldpanner?
"I went through them all and couldn't believe
that I had a set," he said of the discovery.
"It's the only set there is in the whole wide
world."
Asked how much the set is worth, Hayden said he
couldn't begin to estimate. Like other gaming icons
that have passed into history, the Gregory Street
Casino is gone; the casino only produced 200 sets
of the special chip; only seven chips had errors;
and five of those produced the side image.
"How do you put a value on something that's
one of a kind?" he asked.
A mistake in the minting process created a frenzy
among coin collectors earlier this year when the
Wisconsin edition of the U.S. Mint's ongoing "50
State Quarters" series was produced.
The Wisconsin quarter, minted in 2004, bears the
image of a cow, a wheel of cheese and a half-husked
ear of corn. But coin collectors say two versions
of the quarter were produced with a variation on
the ear of corn. The rare variation resulted in
collectors paying up to $1,500 for the coin.
Hayden pulled out another error chip, this one
with a local connection. The chip, from the Palms,
has one side showing the denomination of $25 and
the other side showing the value as $10.
"I like them all," Hayden said, "but
I like chips more than I like coins."
Chips have their own unique characteristics, he
said, "but there are billions of quarters out
there."
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