Five colored 360 chips in the case with two set of playing cards and five reddish black dices in wooden and gold plated architecture have made it most expensive. Well you're in luck, because here they come. By far, the most popular niche within the hobby is collecting obsolete chips from casinos in the Silver State, preferably those from Las Vegas. Those casinos issued as many as 600 different chips. Most of the casinos in Las Vegas use chips by Paul-Son, a third-generation company founded by Paul Endy Sr., which went public three years ago. 284. Gambler's Paradice Ocean One Mall, Atlantic City, New Jersey; (800) 344- 2594 or (609) 344-2500. "Here was a way to solve our problem of needing new chips and increasing our revenue. There are clubs and organizations all over the country devoted to casino chip collecting. Because of the casino's popularity, its chips are some of the most plentiful of those from Cuba, though they are found in significantly smaller numbers than those from most popular Las Vegas casinos. Second best is anything else from Nevada. 1 000ct. Shop from the world's largest selection and best deals for Collectable Casino Chips. The $2.50s are something I hadn't considered before... but they aren't used as much either. "The reason I started collecting Cuban chips is because the casino business is interwoven with the history of Cuba. Paul-Son's chips are made through a compression-mold process and are identifiable by small, uneven colored stripes on the edge of a chip. High-denomination chips are particularly valuable to the collector of obsolete chips. Cashing In. "Everyday chips become valuable once they're obsolete," explains Black. Harrah's Atlantic City, along with Caesars, was instrumental in issuing a special Miss America pageant chip that was jointly circulated in September 1997 by New Jersey's casinos--the first time all 12 banded together to issue a common chip. 150. The mind reels. Casino Collectible Magazine Tom and Gayle Pleau, publishers, P.O. Percentage. (A Meyer Lansky-like character was portrayed by actor Lee Strasberg in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, Part II, carving up Havana's gambling among various mob bosses.) If you own any casino chips, they may be highly sought after by collectors. But even the ones that complain still come in and get the chips. Collectors say there is a simple reason why Four Queens issued the most chips in 1996 and why the Fiesta is leading so far in 1997. Therefore, if all things are equal, a chip from Las Vegas is more valuable than a chip from anywhere else. The second reason may be evident to anyone who's visited a casino in the past few years. Casino review . The island nation has been baseball crazy since the days when many of the Major League teams had spring training sites there. Of those 600 different chips, however, Garrett believes as many as 150 are unique or nearly unique--meaning only one, or two at the most, have ever been seen in the collectibles market. Get 1 Year of Cigar Aficionado for Just $10 + A Free Gift! "But when we saw where it was going with the market we moved fast. "For a collector, limited chips are where it's happening," says Lurie. The Capri attracted many of the Hollywood elite, who were permitted to gamble on the airplane ride from Miami to Havana. Typically, chips become obsolete in one of three ways: (1) the casino that issued them goes out of business--the Playboy casino in Atlantic City or the Dunes in Las Vegas, for example; (2) the casino changes its name or ownership and issues chips under the new name; or (3) the casino changes chip design or manufacturer. Bud Jones uses an injection-mold process. It framed by 5.13 carats of pink diamonds and featuring 17 one-carat diamonds around the rim, the 22-karat pink gold chip is valued at $450,000. The few chips that survive today are those that walked out of the casino in patrons' pockets. ", The problem of scarcity has been particularly acute with Cuban chips. In a 16-month period from January 1996 to May 1997, Nevada casinos issued 415 commemorative chips, according to Casino Collectible Magazine. Go to previous slide - Best Selling. Using a proprietary process, images are printed 5/1,000 of an inch deep into the chip's surface. Only one chip is known to have survived from the Golden Goose, and it sold for $3,000 at a CC>CC auction in 1996. Several months later, the collector discovers the dealer has several more of the same chip. With an estimated 12,000 legal and illegal casinos known to have operated worldwide between 1900 and 1997, according to longtime chip collector and gaming historian Howard Herz, too many variations and denominations exist for all of them to be collected. As the story goes, the owner of the club fled Cuba within days of the Revolution, bringing with him 60,000 to 70,000 of his club's casino chips and stashing them on his escape yacht. All Rights Reserved. Everybody can buy these chips at face value, and they're beautiful. (A guest can also bet $50,000 on one hand. Garrett buys many of his chips from baseball card dealers who regularly do business in Cuba. Whether that will be good for the traditional chip collector remains to be seen. The value of the supposedly one-of-a-kind chip then plummets. For the last Mike Tyson/Evander Holyfield fight, the MGM Grand in Las Vegas issued $100 and $500 commemorative chips. While several retail stores are dedicated to chips and other gambling collectibles, primarily in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, dozens of individuals advertise their chips for sale in the back of the Casino Chip and Gaming Token Collectors Club's quarterly newsletter, in Gaming Times magazine or on the Internet. "Those chips would normally last five years," says Kendall. $18.99: $4.74 It's not unusual for older $1 chips to sell for upwards of $50. Best Selling. "This hobby is a hobby of the future," says Trimble, who grew up in Newport, Kentucky, and specializes in illegal gaming chips from that town. … Lurie now has about 700 chips in his collection, but it's a single chip from the Pussycat a'GoGo, now worth about $75, that is one of his prized possessions. So, that’s a maximum of $75,000 a pop. The casino chips which are the most expensive are not always the oldest ones or the rarest ones. The reason, say collectors, is tied to uncertainty over the island's political future. These commemorative chips are "live" and can be used at the gaming tables, though they're usually snapped up by collectors within days of their issue. The beauty of collecting casino chips lies in their value from the onset. That's where I met my wife." The rarer a casino chip is, for whatever the reason, the more valuable it is likely to be to collectors. They had one little craps table and one 21 table. Casino Chip and Gaming Tokens Collectors Club James Steffner, membership officer, P.O. The residents were using them for their evening card games. Now, all of a sudden, they say there's too many. He also operates a retail store in Las Vegas under the same name and his personal collection runs to 10,000 chips. 4.8 out of 5 stars 308. Get it as soon as Wed, Dec 30. Most Valuable Casino Chips to go to a casino is 18 and up, while in others it’s 21 and up. "People get in with more greed than knowledge. It is easy for people to get carried away in a market as hot as chips. "Within 30 days the casino ordered another 15,000. Price New from Used from Hardcover, October 1, 2005 "Please retry" $18.99 . Even longtime holdouts against commemorative chips have decided they can no longer ignore the market. Many collectors shave their area of interest even finer. White or Blue chips are one dollar. The growth of the hobby has been nothing less than unbelievable to longtime collectors, many of whom thought they were the only ones quirky enough to care for little, round pieces of clay and plastic stamped with the names of long-forgotten casinos. Green chips are twenty-five dollars and are called quarters. The Fremont Street casino was slots only, except for two weeks when it had several gaming tables. Chip collectors typically collect by region, with the most popular being casinos from Las Vegas, followed by other gaming towns in Nevada such as Lake Tahoe, Reno and Laughlin. Anything under 1,000 you'll have trouble finding, but the value will go up fast.". See it? New Year's Eve in Cuba. "It's kind of like the postman going for a walk on his day off," he says. Purchasing one of every Nevada commemorative chip at face value in 1996 would have set a collector back $3,609. Paul-Son and Bud Jones credit Chipco with revolutionizing the chip business and fueling the collector market by introducing the first chips with full-color, photo-like graphics. JPC 500 Piece Crown Casino 13.5g Clay Poker Chips. With Senator Kefauver shutting down illegal gaming across the United States, casino owners were left with only two nearby areas in which to relocate legally, Nevada and Cuba. Gaming Times magazine Bill Akeman Jr., publisher, (702) 876-6020. With older, historical chips you think about Meyer Lanskyand the mob.". Chips are available in plenty of different designs and are made with different types of materials like plastic, "Hard Rock said they wanted funky-looking chips, so we worked with [owner] Peter Morton's design group, in Los Angeles, to come up with a line of chips," says DeGregorio. Casinos buy his chips for 59 cents to 75 cents each, making the company anywhere from $2,950 to $3,750 for every commemorative chip ordered in an edition of 5,000. Collectors also value eBay casino chips, however, by their condition, typically grading them in the following manner: N (New) - Never used and contains no imperfections. ", Many longtime collectors are less worried about the types and quantities of limited-edition chips constantly being issued than they are about speculators who seem to flood any collectible market that breaks into the mainstream. FREE Shipping. While collectors enjoy watching the value of their collections grow, most acquire chips today because they are drawn to the history of towns such as Las Vegas, Atlantic City and Havana. "If the casino goes bankrupt or changes name, the chip is worth even more.". To this day, most chip collectors do business by mail. For whatever reason, he threw the chips overboard. See All - Best Selling. The Guinness World Record for most valuable poker chip was installed Toronto jeweller Gerald Lewy. Obviously, the least expensive to purchase “new” is the $1 chip. Comments Off on $100,000: The Highest Value Casino Chip. Taking into account the manufacturer's price of about 65 cents a chip, Caesars cleared a profit of nearly $1.2 million. Sign up to receive our curated weekly newsletter about cigars and the good life. "If you buy a chip off the table at face value, you can always cash it back in for exactly what you paid for it," says Black. The disk – really a work of art – was appraised with a value of $450,000 – leading Guinness World Records to designate it the most valuable casino chip in the world. "It's brought more new collectors to the hobby. Sin city plays with millions of casino chips every hour, but there are just four left of the $5 denomination chip from the Sands Hotel and Casino. © Cigar Aficionado Online, M. Shanken Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. The answer: A guest could bet $25,000 a hand, three hands at a time. Not only did Caesars receive what it thought was a more secure chip, it discovered a sure-fire way to make money. The obverse carried the name of the issuing casino. For what it’s worth, the maximum bet at Planet Hollywood’s baccarat tables is a whopping $200,000. People collect all kinds of chips, and old and rare casino chips can be very valuable. "You take people for granted until they're gone; it's the same way with chips.". Nor do those chips spark the imaginations of collectors the way older, obsolete chips do. It's exceeded all of our expectations.". Garrett believes there are about two dozen serious collectors of Cuban chips in the United States, though many others count at least one Cuban chip in their collections. Another recent rarity comes from the Club Royale cruise ship, which once sailed out of Florida. Most casinos at the time used silver dollar coins instead of $1 chips. are old casino chips valuable Therefore, if all things are equal, a chip from Las Vegas is more valuable than a chip from anywhere else. "When I was growing up here, I remember certain clubs that are no longer downtown or on the Strip," says Ron Lurie, who was mayor of Las Vegas from 1987 to 1991 and is now the director of marketing for Arizona Charlie's hotel and casino. Collectors Turn to Casino Chips, Seeking Fun, Profit and a Link to Gambling History Through These Fascinating and Colorful Pieces of Clay and Plastic That Don't Lose Their Value Even After They Leave the Gaming Table. RFID tags, used for years to track livestock, are useful in detecting fake chips. Contact the magazine at: 4089 Spring Mountain Road., Las Vegas, Nevada 89102; (702) 876-6020. When chip collectors talk history, the conversation often turns to the most wide-open gambling town of the 1950s-- Havana, Cuba. "One of the problems with the hobby is we're so new and taking off so fast there is not much literature and few catalogs where you can find information about chips," says Black. "Maybe there's not enough collectors," he observes. Most Valuable Casino Chips, how does sweepstakes gambling work, party casino tables, kalama washington casino. Here are some examples of commemorative chips in demand: a $5 Valentine's Day chip issued in l997 by Harrah's Atlantic City now sells for $60, a $5 Donald Trump/Marla Maples wedding chip issued by the Taj Mahal sells for about $45, a $5 George Burns 100th birthday chip issued by Caesars Palace in Las Vegas sells for about $30, and a $5 Betty Boop chip issued by the MGM Grand in Las Vegas sells for $35. A $100 chip from Benny "Bugsy" Siegel's two-year, 1946-1947 reign at the original Flamingo in Las Vegas sold for $3,500 at CC>CC's 1997 auction. ", Alhough Trimble admits he's as much at fault as anyone for the glut of chips on the market, it's hard to take offense at someone so enthusiastic about chip collecting. "Every time one of the casinos' chips walks and doesn't get redeemed, it is like the casino writing a check that isn't cashed," says Black. Although casinos have tens of thousands of their everyday house chips, commemoratives are usually manufactured in small editions ranging from 500 to 5,000 and are typically issued in $5 denominations, though some go higher. Monaco's Société des Bains de Mer casino recently issued 14 different Chipco roulette chips, which are now worth $50 apiece to collectors. Betchain Casino - Free Spins every Friday Read our full review . The scam goes like this: The dealer presents a chip to a collector as "the only one he's ever seen," and sells it for, say, $200 because of its supposed rarity. "People have a genuine reluctance to buy them, but they will have to get over that because these chips are historically significant. One of the premier collectors of Cuban chips, Henry Garrett, has traced 80 casinos that existed in Cuba from 1840 to 1958. While a handful of enthusiasts around the world collect Cuban chips, it is the modern-day gaming chip, primarily from the post-Second World War era in Las Vegas, that is most prized by the majority of collectors. It was December 31, 1958. Other valuable and scarce pre-Castro chips came from the Havana Yacht Club, considered Havana's premier private social club. 4.6 out of 5 stars 519. September 4, 2013 by Staff writer. "In 1991 we were in a recession and looking for any conceivable way to improve performance," says Edward Sutor, Caesars' senior vice president of finance. A famous, historically significant casino like the Flamingo, Sands, Dunes, etc. Yes, these chips are not just valuable while playing but can fetch you big bucks long after the game is over. It was just a place to go to dance and hang out for people of our age. $33.98 $ 33. 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