Collecting Casino Chips Never Gets Old

The first casino chip I ever saved was from the Pacheco Inn after I lost $18 playing poker and saved three $1 chips. Being underage didn’t stop me from exploring the poker rooms in Northern California or casinos at Lake Tahoe, and I always found chips to collect, adding a bit of rebellious fun to … Read more

The Lure of Casino Chips

What exactly makes people collect casino chips? Is it the round shape? After all, who hasn’t taken a coin of some type and flipped it – heads, tails, heads, tails-that’s a universal urge. But chips, I’m not sure if they evoke the same instinct, yet they hold a special allure for many collectors like us. … Read more

2010 Chip Convention on the way to Las Vegas

The 2010 edition of the CC&GTCC convention hits Las Vegas in just a few weeks. This year’s event is being held at the South Point Casino. Conventioneers will begin arriving as early as the 18th, but the main event, the show in the Grand Ballroom, opens to the public on June 24th at 10:00 AM … Read more

1985s Bill Borland Newsletter

A few of you may vaguely remember this item – a 1985 issue of Bill Borland’s World Wide Casino Exchange Newsletter that featured a story on Harold’s Club. Bill started a company he called Star Time, Inc. from his offices in Las Vegas and began purchasing casino dice, chips, and other memorabilia in the late … Read more

Not One-of-a-kind, but Rare

So, you have some one-of-a-kind chips? So do I. Well, not exactly, well, no, I don’t. However, I do have a few that have just a few cousins kicking around in drawers and collections. One of them is the chip above. This is an oversized variety, 42 mm, and has “SPEED POKER ALL-IN” on the … Read more

Old Friends

I’ve been cleaning out the closets – opening boxes and sifting through a lot of old papers. Having collected casino items for thirty years now, you can imagine that I’ve met a lot of people in the hobby. Some of them I met at collector shows, like the one the Chip Collectors Club (CC&GTCC) puts … Read more