How do you enjoy your collection

This is in reference to Doc's Caino Chip of the Day thread.

I'm not a collector myself, but I think I understand some of the aspects of this activity and how people enjoy it. However, I would like to hear from the colelctors themselves, and learn about it.

For example, I do have some keepsakes and souvenirs from various vacations. I happen upon them from time to time, and often this awakes memories of that kind of travel (and for that reason there are thigns I've removed from my life as well, but that's a different story). I can easily imagine Doc, ebcause I've seen pictures of his colelction, contemplating it and reminescing on the story or adventure behind each chip. I don't claim this is what he does, only that I can conceive it.

I can also imagine various kinds of displays,a nd looking at them to appreciate the objects themselves. I suppose there are all kinds of ways to go about it. I can imagine for some the pleasure or enjoyment lies in the acquisition, regardless of means, and then the colelcted object is put away and glimpsed thereafter on rare ocassions.

Had a wicked baseball card collection as a kid…..Mantle, Maris, Koufax, Drysdale, Bonds, Gibson, Aaron, Rose, Bench…..on and on and on. Had nearly 6,000 Tops baseball cards. Three deep in top players. Mint condition. I was a ruthless card trader at 9. Chewed the gum that came with the cards, constantly.

Several years after leaving home my mom asked what she should do with the cards, I told her to trash them. At the time the cards had very little resale value. The baseball card craze hit 15 years later in the early 90's. I valued my trashed collection at 100,000 at the peak.

My chip collection is placed in my living room, under a glass top coffee table. It makes a hell of a center piece, especially at dinner parties when each of the chips have a story to tell. It is also very "vegas-esque"!

Quote: treetopbuddy

The baseball card craze hit 15 years later in the early 90's. I valued my trashed collection at 100,000 at the peak.

Take heart. For one thing you'd no idea a card craze would hit or how strongly. For another, if mroe people had saved their cards, they woudln't have been worth much, monetarily, afterwards.

Quote: treetopbuddy

Had a wicked baseball card collection as a kid…..Mantle, Maris, Koufax, Drysdale, Bonds, Gibson, Aaron, Rose, Bench…..on and on and on. Had nearly 6,000 Tops baseball cards. Three deep in top players. Mint condition. I was a ruthless card trader at 9. Chewed the gum that came with the cards, constantly.

Several years after leaving home my mom asked what she should do with the cards, I told her to trash them. At the time the cards had very little resale value. The baseball card craze hit 15 years later in the early 90's. I valued my trashed collection at 100,000 at the peak.

I also had a large baseball card collection approx 9,000 cards.I sold them a couple years before the peak but I still made about 20k.I had one card that I paid 50cents for and sold it for $800 It was a Mays or Clemente rookie card.I started losing interest when all the new companys came out.

I've never really collected anything other than magnets from new places that I visit. Although I had a few chips from random places, I didn't start collecting until I started following Doc's CotD thread. I don't really go way out of the way to collect either, only if I'm passing through some place. Right now I have my 130-ish chips and 25 pairs of dice all in 1 bag and when I finally have a place of my own I think I will somehow display it in my study room.

I often declare that since I gave up working for a living, my full time job is to have fun. My wife and I are partners on that job. Around home, we get this fun mostly through sports events, musical performances (we went to two of them today -- a piano duo in the early afternoon and a chorale concert this evening), theatrical shows, and frequent parties and social encounters with our friends at our condo.

We also spend quite a bit of time traveling strictly for the fun that we can gather that way. I have two "collections", though not everyone would use that term for one of them. Both of them have been discussed on this forum, and both are related to our travels.

The first, of course, is the casino chip collection, which was the basis for starting the Casino Chip of the Day thread. One of the stories that I related in this post tells how I started collecting casino chips. The real pleasure (for me) in collecting chips and in having such a collection is the travel involved in going to the casinos. I have plenty of fun at the gaming table, but the travel around the country and beyond is the real fun, and the collecting bug has often been justification for taking a trip. Just three days ago, I made this post talking about trips we have in mind from now through August and how those relate to collecting casino chips.

Earlier in our travels, my wife and I collected such things as T-shirts and coffee mugs from the places that we visited. It didn't take too long to realize that those eventually take up a lot of space, and I don't even drink coffee! We did eventually find a way to put a couple dozen mugs on display without taking up too much room.

Displaying the chips in my collection turned out to be quite a bit easier, and they take up no room at all that would be used for anything else. As Nareed mentioned, I have posted photos of my collection (under the glass top on my desk, similar to the way Tomspur displays his) several times in this forum. I think the most recent photo was the one I posted here last October when I had 386 casinos represented. The total is now 398.

I don't really spend much time looking at these chips and thinking about the casinos, even though the chips are right there on the desktop in front of me. I enjoy the colors and geometric array, and I enjoy discussing the set or the individual chips with visitors who may have been to some of the casinos.

It's a bit different with the other "collection", which includes the photographs I have taken during our travels. I have covered the walls of our condo with an outrageous number of these travel photos in sizes from 5x7 to 20x30 plus a few oddballs like an 8x64 panorama. Those we do look at all the time, and we regularly re-live the visits to those many sites, just from the memories triggered from looking at the photos.

Quote: Doc

I often declare that since I gave up working for a living, my full time job is to have fun. My wife and I are partners on that job. Around home, we get this fun mostly through sports events, musical performances (we went to two of them today -- a piano duo in the early afternoon and a chorale concert this evening), theatrical shows, and frequent parties and social encounters with our friends at our condo.

We also spend quite a bit of time traveling strictly for the fun that we can gather that way. I have two "collections", though not everyone would use that term for one of them. Both of them have been discussed on this forum, and both are related to our travels.

The first, of course, is the casino chip collection, which was the basis for starting the Casino Chip of the Day thread. One of the stories that I related in this post tells how I started collecting casino chips. The real pleasure (for me) in collecting chips and in having such a collection is the travel involved in going to the casinos. I have plenty of fun at the gaming table, but the travel around the country and beyond is the real fun, and the collecting bug has often been justification for taking a trip. Just three days ago, I made this post talking about trips we have in mind from now through August and how those relate to collecting casino chips.

Earlier in our travels, my wife and I collected such things as T-shirts and coffee mugs from the places that we visited. It didn't take too long to realize that those eventually take up a lot of space, and I don't even drink coffee! We did eventually find a way to put a couple dozen mugs on display without taking up too much room.

Displaying the chips in my collection turned out to be quite a bit easier, and they take up no room at all that would be used for anything else. As Nareed mentioned, I have posted photos of my collection (under the glass top on my desk, similar to the way Tomspur displays his) several times in this forum. I think the most recent photo was the one I posted here last October when I had 386 casinos represented. The total is now 398.

I don't really spend much time looking at these chips and thinking about the casinos, even though the chips are right there on the desktop in front of me. I enjoy the colors and geometric array, and I enjoy discussing the set or the individual chips with visitors who may have been to some of the casinos.

It's a bit different with the other "collection", which includes the photographs I have taken during our travels. I have covered the walls of our condo with an outrageous number of these travel photos in sizes from 5x7 to 20x30 plus a few oddballs like an 8x64 panorama. Those we do look at all the time, and we regularly re-live the visits to those many sites, just from the memories triggered from looking at the photos.

Damn, I can't wait to be retired. Great post Doc.

Oh, Doc, that was a beautiful post. Thank you!

Quote: Doc

It's a bit different with the other "collection", which includes the photographs I have taken during our travels. I have covered the walls of our condo with an outrageous number of these travel photos in sizes from 5x7 to 20x30 plus a few oddballs like an 8x64 panorama. Those we do look at all the time, and we regularly re-live the visits to those many sites, just from the memories triggered from looking at the photos.

I would love to see this collection as well. Any chance I can coax you to post it here, a little bit at a time, perhaps after you're done posting chips?

O.K., I'm coming clean. I collected firecracker labels. I've said it…..

The artwork is very impressive, especially on the older labels.

Doc, do you clean the chips in your collection? Most of the $1 chips that I see are absolutely filthy. I have brought home a few and tried to clean them with varying success. I have a white one from Seoul that still looks pretty bad.

Yes, I at least try. Usually, before I even put them in my suitcase, I'll wash them with water and whatever soap my motel has provided. That helps a lot. Before I put them in my display at home, I usually use a general-purpose household spray cleaner on them. Now rdw4potus has tried some solvent cleaners, but I think he has seen some chip colors get dissolved along with the dirt.

I wonder what the amrket would be for an effective chip cleaner. I'm thinking high-energy lasers for removing grime while leaving the materials untouched, if the thermal properties are amenable to this. of course, that cannot be put in a can and sold...

Quote: Nareed

I wonder what the amrket would be for an effective chip cleaner. I'm thinking high-energy lasers for removing grime while leaving the materials untouched, if the thermal properties are amenable to this. of course, that cannot be put in a can and sold...

A Google search shows that there are industrial ultrasonic chip cleaning machines marketed to casinos. I wouldn't want to try to sell them. I don't see much evidence that they are ever used.

Quote: JimRockford

A Google search shows that there are industrial ultrasonic chip cleaning machines marketed to casinos. I wouldn't want to try to sell them. I don't see much evidence that they are ever used.

Here's a more disturbing thought: they do sell and casinos use them intensively.

Maybe I should try to sell alcohol gel and latex gloves instead :)

I've tried cleaning with acetone. that worked GREAT on ceramic chips. And it was OK on plastics, though it's very drying so if the plastic is porous it can be discoloring. It was hit-or-miss on clay chips. It does clean dirt/grime very well. But, it can also transfer colors from the inserts to the chip and from the chip to the inserts. Additionally, it just about made me pass out last spring.

Like Hunter, I did cards. What boy hasn't? Also like Hunter, I quit when all the companies piled on. Used to be it was just Topps, Fleer, Upper Deck. Once everyone came and started putting out foil, and 3D, and hologram, it was too much for a child to keep up with.

I wouldn't say it was quite a "collection". After all, we were 10 years old. It's not like we were making decisions based on the investment 20 years down the road. We just traded for what we wanted, which was often our favorite players regardless of financial incentive. I was lucky to be a Dolphins fan. I have a ton of Marino's laying around, should the trading card industry experience another boom.

I had a chance to get a Marino rookie, back when it was only $45. But it was a choice of one card, or a ton of candy. And children are stupid. It's only $100-$150 now, but there was a time when it was pushing a grand. Ah well.

I also have a Barry Sanders rookie. That one is even more expensive, and I got it for free in a trade for someone that is long forgotten. And some girl, to get my attention cause she was mad at me, took it and bent it in half. I never got rid of it, still have it even though it's now worthless. I keep it as a reminder that women are emotional, irrational creatures who serve only to make you broke and break your heart (I kid! ;))

In my 20's I collected old money. Any coin earlier than '65, as they were real silver. And any bill previous to '55, as that was my arbitrary cut off point. I worked in retail at the time, though, and every penny of the $100,000 that went through the store went through my hands everyday. I always kept a roll on me to buy the old bills from the till. Had quite a collection, but I really wanted an ATV. And boys of any age are stupid.

Now I suppose I just collect memories. I just try to do stuff, take pictures, and write about it. So far, it's be the most valuable collection I've started =)

Quote: Face

In my 20's I collected old money. Any coin earlier than '65, as they were real silver. And any bill previous to '55, as that was my arbitrary cut off point.

I tried numismatics in my early teens. Not seriously. I still have a few odd bank notes, but nothing particularly valuable (interesting, yes). the "oddest" are two notes issued by the state of Chihuhua during the Mexican revolution, in 5 and 10 peso denominations. But these are so easy to get it's embarrassing. The odd part is they have the denomination in Roman numerals.

I've a few coins, too. Again, nothing really valuable or even very interesting. My favorite is an old Israeli pay-phone token. Why? it has a hole in the middle (which isn't terribly unusual for coins) but it also has a slot running the diameter of one side. On the other side it has an engraving of a phone dial. Of course whether a token is a coin can be debated.

Quote: treetopbuddy

Several years after leaving home my mom asked what she should do with the cards, I told her to trash them. At the time the cards had very little resale value. The baseball card craze hit 15 years later in the early 90's. I valued my trashed collection at 100,000 at the peak.

Any idea what they would be worth today, well after the crash? "At peak" is meaningless if you think the prices are going to keep going up and you hold onto them too long.

I collect four things:
$5 Casino chips, which I keep in frames on my living room wall; all are from Vegas except for two from Australia
Casino dice, which I keep in a box in my bedroom
Shot glasses (mainly one per city, usually from airport gift shops), which are in my kitchen cupboards
Stamps; I have standing orders for pretty much all USA and UK commemorative (and UK "definitive" - the ones with The Queen on them) stamps. I used to collect Australian stamps as well, but that got too expensive as I had to collect those in blocks of 4.

Quote: Nareed

I wonder what the amrket would be for an effective chip cleaner. I'm thinking high-energy lasers for removing grime while leaving the materials untouched, if the thermal properties are amenable to this. of course, that cannot be put in a can and sold...

Casinos wouldn't use them because the dealers prefer the chips a little dirty therefore a little sticky. Much easier to handle sticky, dirty chips than what it is to do the same with clean chips. They slip and slide all over the place.

For me it is a weak excuse and the casinos are too lazy to get the chips washed but it is what it is.

In my collection, which is locked up, I have one if the OJ Simpson autographed cards that he signed while in jail. It's not worth as much as you'd think. I think he signed a thousand or so of them.

My family has a lot of Johnny Podres memoribilia, he is from the same town that I am from. The last time I saw him was in a local bar and I remember a Monday Night Football game being on. Pretty cool to sit and have a beer with the 1955 World Series MVP.

My grandmother grew up just down the road from him, and as many probably did, got signed baseballs. My grandmother kept hers in the best possible shape she could. When she passes on, she left it to my uncle and I. We have a signed baseball, in pencil, by the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers. Unfortunately, Jackie Robinson's name is not on it. But still, it's a cool piece of baseball history.

Quote: JimRockford

Doc, do you clean the chips in your collection? Most of the $1 chips that I see are absolutely filthy. I have brought home a few and tried to clean them with varying success. I have a white one from Seoul that still looks pretty bad.

I use liquid dish soap with a toothbrush. The dish soap is pretty gentle on the chips and the sticker inlays, while the toothbrush is good at getting the encrusted dirt out of the imprinted designs. Of course some of the chips are permanently stained, so it doesn't help there, but I usually try to find the cleanest chip I can with square (instead of rounded / wore down) edges in the first place.