Casino Chip of the Day

Quote: Doc

First, you need to have both the "small" and "large" images stored some place on the web. Then post the image with a line that looks like this:

[link=http://-the-URL-for-your-large-image][img=http://-the-URL-for-your-small-image][/link]

And yes, I had to add a bunch of extra codes to that line to make it show up properly in this post. You don't need the extra brackets in the real post -- just type what appears above (with the real "www.XXXX.yyy/filename.jpg"). It might be easier on your first try to just quote one of my posts, copy that final line, cancel the quote/reply, then paste into your post while substituting your own URLs for mine.

I had tried to post a picture of a couple of Caesars commemerative $25 chips when we were on their chips but was trying to link to an address on my computer, so I guess that was what was wrong. I am not sure where I would post an image on the web and link to it, maybe you can enlighten me Doc.

Quote: kenarman

I had tried to post a picture of a couple of Caesars commemerative $25 chips when we were on their chips but was trying to link to an address on my computer, so I guess that was what was wrong. I am not sure where I would post an image on the web and link to it, maybe you can enlighten me Doc.

I opened a free photobucket.com account to house my images for this thread. It's free, and pretty simple to use.

Quote: Ayecarumba

I opened a free photobucket.com account to house my images for this thread. It's free, and pretty simple to use.

I did the same. It's pretty handy.

Quote: Doc

. . . and I pointed out that their ON/OFF puck on the crap table said "PAUL-SON" right on the face.

Damn. I've seen that and wondered what it meant, even though I knew Paulson is a gaming supplier. Throw a dash in there, and it totally screwed me up!

Thanks for the info I will give it a try.

Quote: kenarman

Thanks for the info I will give it a try.

You want to be careful on your first try. I think that photobucket (I've never used it myself) includes a viewer to display the image for you on their site. Some people have tried to post an image here using a URL reference that includes the viewer references, and it doesn't work. I suggest that you take a look at the way rdw4potus and Ayecarumba have set up the links for their image posts and copy that. (You can view how they have formatted their posts by clicking the "quote" button under their post and looking at the formatting codes they used. Just cancel after you are finished viewing the details of their stuff, if you don't really have something to post there.)

Or even be adventurous, post small and large images to photobucket, and try doing the clickable-small-image to give the full image, as discussed earlier today.

Hello everyone and thank you Doc for this thread. Been lurking around long enough so I figure I post this. I'm pretty new at this chip collecting and I happened upon your thread late March, about a week before I started my cross-country trip. It made me really interested in visiting as many casinos as possible for the chips and something else to do along the way. I think I stopped at about 50 casinos this trip in Biloxi, Shreveport, Albuquerque (played craps at the famous Star... and lost), Laughlin, and LV (didn't let Jean and Primm slip out of my hands either). Going $8 across at the Joker's Wild was a low roller's heaven! I also played at all the places I collected from. Didn't go to any of the strip properties but I will do that next time. Also must get all the Station prop chips someday.

Here is the 2012 St. Patrick chip I got off the tray playing BJ. An old lady playing next to me on 3rd said they were being sold in the gift store before at above face value (forgot the amount) but when I went to the shop for dice (another stupid collection I started along with chips...) I saw the cashier scan a player's card and then gave the person one of these St patty chip muttering something about it being a lucky charm. Anyway it must not have been someone's lucky charm because it ended up in the tray.

I went in the early afternoon and I enjoyed it very much. They had advertising stating they have a new air filtration system that takes out much of the smoke. Since there wasn't much people at all I don't know how the place would smell when it's full.

On an off note I can see how Primm is capturing the hispanic market not only with shows catering to this group but with their cheerful attitude (and low limits). The box lady at Primm Valley very pleasantly and cheerfully said thank you for stopping by when I left. Of course it probably helped that I gave them $19 in 10 minutes :)

Well hello, Konbu! Thanks for making your first post on this site such a nice one with such nice images of your chips. I like the winking leprechaun.

Most casinos don't offer commemorative chips at $1 -- they are hoping that even non-collectors will want to take a special chip home, and the higher the chip value, the higher the markup/profit. There are lots of $5 and $25 commemorative chips. Probably $100 chips, too, though I haven't seen them myself. I have very few commemoratives in my collection of $1 chips.

In many casinos a one dollar chip is a high value chip. It may be the lowest denomination but its a high value chip. They probably make more money selling commemorative one dollar Leprechaun chips than having too many unsold commemorative five dollar chips on hand.

Quote: Doc

I received the UV flashlight that I ordered before heading out on my trip, but I only have in stock one of the three required AAA batteries. I'll pick some up today and check out any "hidden" images on my chips.

Be sure to check out the first generation of Luxor $1 chips (Chipco) from mid-90's. Five different hidden images. Collect 'em all!

My chip from the Luxor is a clay chip that www.themogh.org reports as having been issued in 2004. I cannot see anything that fluoresces under the UV light except one of the edge inserts.

So far, I have only been able to detect hidden images on a couple of my chips. I have mostly been shining the light through the glass cover on my desktop, so that may have some adverse impact on the inspection. I'll check things out better the next time I lift the glass off. I have noticed that several of the edge inserts glow quite well, and the entire outer ring of some of the clay chips seems to fluoresce just a bit.

Quote: Doc

So far, I have only been able to detect hidden images on a couple of my chips. I have mostly been shining the light through the glass cover on my desktop, so that may have some adverse impact on the inspection.

I don't think the glass is a problem. Typically only windowpane glass has a reflective UV coating, and then not all of them do. It's more likely that most chips have only a strip or blotch or ring of fluorescent paint only. In some US notes, the older ones as I recall, only the safety strip fluoresces at all.

But as you have a range of manufacturers and casinos, each with their own ideas, there are bound to be some surprises.

State: Nevada
City: Laughlin
Casino: Colorado Belle

Today's Casino Chip of the Day is the second specimen from Laughlin. The Colorado Belle is the casino there that is designed to look like a giant, side-wheel riverboat, and it is described in the Wizard's article on Laughlin. It has a multi-deck gaming area, but I seem to recall one of those levels being closed for remodeling the last time I was in town. On that trip, I didn't play any at the Colorado Belle and just wandered through the place as part of a stroll down the riverwalk.

As I began to post this, I noticed that I seem to have a focus problem on my image. It might just be depth of field, but I think I may have the whole image out of focus. If I get a chance, I will try to take another shot and replace the .jpg files. I'll post a note if I do.

This chip is listed in one resource as being a Bud Jones chip, and it has a lot of similarities to the Club Cal Neva chip reported as coming from that same source. There is no logo I can see on this one either. It has a brass coin insert and lots of red and blue edge inserts. On the chip edge (not visible in the photo) there are two blue dashes between each set of edge inserts. The dashes are about the middle third of the chip thickness and they align with the eight blue radial protrusions from the inner blue ring.

I personally like the chip designs with the metal coin inserts. According to the on-line resources, there were several variants of this chip over the years, with differences like the relative alignments of the casino name and the sets of edge inserts.

The curious little image on the coin, right above the "$1", is supposed to be a dual-stack riverboat. Use some imagination.

I have read one web site that describes the colored segment of the chip surrounding the brass coin (or maybe just the eight protrusions from it) as being "incused." According to my dictionary, that word means "hammered or stamped on a coin." Other sites use that word to describe the logos and names that are recessed into the chip. While the red and blue "spots" on the perimeter are edge inserts, I haven't found any other reference that gives a name to an insert that surrounds a coin or other central insert. Anyone got some help for me here?

With my newly-purchased, UV flashlight now in hand, I was hoping to have lots of hidden images to report, but it's not likely they could hide one in the brass. All of the blue – the 12 edge inserts in blue, the two copies of the casino name, and the inner ring with the 8 protrusions (whatever it is called) – all do fluoresce under the UV light, while the red and white do not.

The letters of the casino name are completely flush and smooth with the surface, but the blue ring around the coin is slightly recessed on one side of the chip, even though the 8 blue radial protrusions (?) on both sides are flush with the white surface. Again, I would like to know more about the manufacturing process(es) for these things.

Casino: Enjoy Casino & Resort
Location: Viña del Mar, Chile



These are chips currently used in Chile's biggest casino, the Enjoy at Viña del Mar. They are made of light plastic, something I have only saw in this casino. Staff told me they are using the same chips from the former City Casino that dates from 1970. The $100 chip has the conventional 39mm diameter size, and the big one ($1,000) has two inches.

By the time I visited (2008) the blue chip was the most common in the floor since it value was U$5. Now Chilean currency has gone down the hill and its value is about U$2.1, making the $100 worth almost a quarter.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the $10,000 chips. They were huge, having about 70mm of diameter. For higher denominations such as $20,000; $100,000 and $200,000 they used to have those heavy rectangular plaques made of acrylic and wood. I recall that the $200,000 chips would not fit into my pocket, because they were 2 times bigger than a credit card.

Chips with value greater than $5,000 have an uncique number carved on their back to assure autenticity.

Quote: aluisio

I recall that the $200,000 chips would not fit into my pocket.

Yes, I've never been able to put a $200,000 chip in my pocket either.

Here is my Colorado Belle Chip. I'm hoping to have smaller images sorted out in the next couple days. For now, to not fill an entire page with the image...

Two things:

(1) I had never before seen the "Show/Hide Spoiler" button. I just looked at it in the formatting codes. Is that a new feature? Nice, JB.

(2) The $5 chip posted by rdw4potus is not just a different denomination from the chip I posted, it is also from a different series. In my post I mentioned that there were several similar series of chips with differences like the alignment of the casino name and the blocks of edge spots. Look at how my chip and rdw4potus's chip differ in that regard.

On the $5 chip, I think you can see where the inner yellow ring is slightly recessed below the surface of the outer ring of the chip. While I had mentioned that in my post, it isn't visible in my photo, probably because I photographed the other side of the chip.

Quote: Doc

Yes, I've never been able to put a $200,000 chip in my pocket either.

Really, they were as big as 4" x 3"!

Quote: aluisio

Really, they were as big as 4" x 3"!

I'm not sure which one of us is putting the other on, but I just remembered that you are from Brazil, so there could be a language/communications issue. While I understood that you were talking about the large physical size of the chip, I was attempting a little joke about never having $200,000 (U.S.) worth of chips -- as a single chip or a rack full -- to try to put into my pocket. My attempts at humor often fall flat around here and elsewhere.

I have always enjoyed the Belle. First casino where a host reached out to me. Got a jacuzzi suite in the River Boat. Huge sparsely decorated room. Jacuzzi worked. Bad part was walking back to the room the boat was rocking I fell and popped my shoulder out of its socket. Wasn't the first time.

10 years ago the Spanish 21 there rocked. At least 4 tables at all times. Back then every table was open and packed. Laughlin is one of the last places w good VP.
Be there in 17 days.

Quote: Wavy70

Bad part was walking back to the room the boat was rocking I fell and popped my shoulder out of its socket. Wasn't the first time.

Love it! I witnessed a number of people experiencing that same rocking boat phenomenon. And that was right under the Viva Vision on Fremont Street.

Quote: Doc

I'm not sure which one of us is putting the other on, but I just remembered that you are from Brazil, so there could be a language/communications issue. While I understood that you were talking about the large physical size of the chip, I was attempting a little joke about never having $200,000 (U.S.) worth of chips -- as a single chip or a rack full -- to try to put into my pocket. My attempts at humor often fall flat around here and elsewhere.

Don't worry, Doc. I got your 'joke' and no problem with it. U$200,000 would be such a great denomination chip to owe! But in fact, as I have stated, $200,000 (chilean pesos) are about U$1000, which is not that unusual. What is unusual, IMO, is a chip with 4 inches as widht and3 inches as height! And let's say it's not nice to walk around with a U$1000 chip that won't fit into your pocket haha

The B&G web page for their plaques and jetons says that they offer rectangular plaques in 12 sizes, oval plaques in 9 sizes, square plaques in 6 sizes, and jetons in 12 sizes. They don't say what those sizes are for the plaques but say that the jetons (basically the round chips we are familiar with) range from 32mm to 60mm.

The Paulson round "American-Style" chips are available in 39mm (everything I have collected), 43mm, 48mm, and 50mm. The cruise ship I was just on had some promo chips that were larger than the others, but I didn't measure them. I have seen physically-larger chips in some casinos for chip values that are "high" for that casino to assure that they don't mix them. At Casino Nova Scotia in Halifax, they stock some larger orange chips in the craps bank, but I'm not sure whether they are $1,000 or $5,000. I wasn't playing with any of those.

State: Nevada
City: Las Vegas
Casino: Cosmopolitan

Yes, s2dbaker, we have finally reached "The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas," so please post a photo of your chip if it is different from the one shown below.

Yep, that's the full name of the place. The way I heard it, during planning/construction a lot of folks were referring to it as the "Cosmo", and the publishers of the Cosmopolitan magazine, which is often called by that nickname, were not amused. They either sued or threatened to sue to stop the "infringement" on their use of the name and nickname. Result: we have a long, cumbersome official name, everyone just says "Cosmopolitan," and references to "Cosmo" have been reduced.

The Cosmopolitan is the only casino I have ever visited on its opening night, and I didn't even get a souvenir chip then. I posted about that experience, but I can't find the post now (too lazy to search hard), so I'll repeat myself a bit. If you come across my old post, you can check how much my memory has failed or how many lies I may be telling.

My wife and I went to the Cosmopolitan LV grand opening celebration. It was quite a shindig, but the acoustic intensity was literally (wink and nod to DorothyGale) painful to experience. Maybe this is what NicksGamingStuff is going through regularly at work in the D these days. Even though the opening night partygoers at the Cosmopolitan were a treat for the eyes, I had to leave the establishment without ever playing.

The next afternoon, I returned to the casino to find a much more pleasant (to my personal senses) environment. I found a crap table where the game was dead and brought it to life. I had asked in advance whether I could get a commission if I got a real game going, and it took less than an hour for at least one player to be wagering $1,000 chips, but alas, no commission for me. At least I got a souvenir chips that was less than a day old, so it's in excellent condition.

I have returned to the Cosmopolitan several times since those first two visits, but I don't think I have ever gotten back into a game. I have seen some astonishingly high table minimums for games that are not in a high-limit area, including $100 minimum craps when it was not a "private" table. The limits are not always so outrageous, and I am sure there are $10 games at times, but I just have not played there again. It's always a treat in the evenings though, to watch all the folks who are there "to be seen."

This is a Paulson chip with the top hat and cane displayed right on the center insert below the name of the casino. I thought the background pattern on the insert (Sea shells? Ice cream cones? A crowd of bald heads?) would be a fine location for a hidden image, but nothing at all on this chip fluoresces under UV light.

I have no idea why there is that little dip in the printing of "Cosmopolitan" and "Las Vegas" on the center insert. On the other side of the chip, the "$1" looks as if it is not printed quite perpendicular to the casino name. The insert is not wrinkled, but it looks a bit as if the black printing and the red printing were done separately, with some problems perhaps on the red. Any better guesses?

I was at Cosmopolitan shortly after they opened. I was also taken aback by the table limits - especially because many tables were empty. I haven't been back since, but I'd hope this is something they've figured out better by now. Even many of the slots were unusually high. I signed up for the players club and got $10 in free play. I didn't search too hard, but all I could find were $1 slots. I played my $10 off by playing 1 line on a 20 line 3x5 machine. I had one spin that was 4 reels of wilds and one reel with the highest symbol on line 1 - $100! woo! Of course, then I started thinking about what would have happened if I'd played 20 lines or 5 per line...

Cosmopolitan has become my new favorite strip hotel/casino. The service is second to none on the strip, and they offer better (not great) options for games (i.e. Spanish 21, Ultimate Texas Hold Em with a NSU paytable). The atmosphere is electric and the eye candy is usually pretty good.

Perhaps my favorite story was signing up for the player's card. Lisa "Pizza" was very helpful in answering all of my questions. I asked if there was a poker room; she said "Well, it's not the same, but we have Three Card Poker and some other games... but I know it's not the same, so No!" ANY other casino would have just used the answer of yeah we have a poker area of some table games and tried to pass it off as having a poker room. I appreciated her honesty and the attempt to generate some business. That's what a good player's club representative should do.

Quote: rdw4potus

I was at Cosmopolitan shortly after they opened. I was also taken aback by the table limits - especially because many tables were empty. I haven't been back since, but I'd hope this is something they've figured out better by now. Even many of the slots were unusually high. I signed up for the players club and got $10 in free play. I didn't search too hard, but all I could find were $1 slots. I played my $10 off by playing 1 line on a 20 line 3x5 machine. I had one spin that was 4 reels of wilds and one reel with the highest symbol on line 1 - $100! woo! Of course, then I started thinking about what would have happened if I'd played 20 lines or 5 per line...

Show Spoiler

Just looked again at my chip. Its a lot like Doc's, but without any Paulson tophat and cane to be seen. The printing looks less flawed, as well.

Quote: rdw4potus

I signed up for the players club and got $10 in free play.

I signed up for their club that day after the grand opening, but since I signed up at the crap table, they didn't mention anything about free play. The process of my getting the player's card was funny. It was the second day of operation (first full day) and the very first shift that the crew had worked. The boxlady offered me a player's card but then had one heck of a time getting one for me. She kept saying that their system wasn't behaving the way she had been taught. She even got help from the pit supervisor who also had trouble. I'm fairly sure that my card was the very first one that the two of them had tried to produce. It took more than half an hour for them to get it to me. When I got home, I tried to sign up that number on their web site (hoping for some offers), but the web site consistently rejected my number. Didn't know what to make of that.

Quote: rdw4potus

Just looked again at my chip. Its a lot like Doc's, but without any Paulson tophat and cane to be seen. The printing looks less flawed, as well.

I also noticed that the background of the insert on your chip is different from mine. Yours looks like a grid on some kind of wavy surface contour, while mine looks like a clump of things, as I tried to speculate in my earlier post.

Quote: Tiltpoul

ANY other casino would have just used the answer of yeah we have a poker area of some table games and tried to pass it off as having a poker room. I appreciated her honesty and the attempt to generate some business.

The night of the Cosmopolitan opening, my wife and I had dinner with the Wizard at Red Rock (on him -- Thanx again, Wiz!) before we headed back to the Strip. We talked about the Cosmopolitan over dinner, and the Wizard said he planned to drop by the next day to check it out and play some tiles. When I got to the casino (and before the noise drove me out), I didn't see a table for that game and I asked a supervisor. She assured me they had a Pai Gow table, but when I asked her for some confirmation, she acknowledged that it was a Pai Gow Poker table and that they didn't have tiles. She seemed a bit surprised that someone was asking about tiles.

I sent the Wiz a note that his game was missing in inaction, but the next day when I want back I encountered him there checking out the place anyway. He headed off to the high-limit room as I went to play $10 craps. That was the day he made some comment about my being a flea. Correct, as usual.

Quote: Doc

I have no idea why there is that little dip in the printing of "Cosmopolitan" and "Las Vegas" on the center insert. On the other side of the chip, the "$1" looks as if it is not printed quite perpendicular to the casino name. The insert is not wrinkled, but it looks a bit as if the black printing and the red printing were done separately, with some problems perhaps on the red. Any better guesses?

My guess is that the insert got warped at the manufacturer. A closer look at the larger image shows that the insert "spills" over on your chip, as it is off center. I think warped the decal when the heat a pressure were applied to integrate it into the "clay". I have the same denomination and style chip. The inserts on both sides are centered, and the graphics are straight. I would be interesting if you could take the glass off your table and turn the chip over to see if both sides have the same defect. It might give us some insight into how they are manufactured.

I echo your distaste for the high volume of the music in the Cosmo on weekend nights. It was painful. I was in the "D" a few weeks ago, and while it was loud, compared to the Four Queens or Fremont, it was still an order of magnitude lower than the Cosmo. I have not been back since my visit shortly after they opened, so hopefully things have improved.

Quote: Ayecarumba

I would be interesting if you could take the glass off your table and turn the chip over to see if both sides have the same defect. It might give us some insight into how they are manufactured.

The two sides are not identical, but the word "Cosmopolitan" is crooked on both of them. On the opposite side, the "P" is the lowest letter in the dip, and (as I alluded to in the original post) the entire set of red printing on that side appears to slope downward left to right in relation to the black printing.

I know that the manufacturing processes are proprietary, but it seems there should be some reasonable descriptions available for public dissemination. The manufacturers' web sites don't even give full descriptions of the options that they offer, just some version of "call us". The Chipco web site even has a page called "For Collectors." It claims to offer a gallery of their chip images, but the list is just for 2005-2006 releases, and none of the links really lead to images. They offer another link that says, "Send us an e-mail and share your thoughts on how CHIPCO might better serve your collecting." If they can't make that one page of images for one or two years' releases work, I doubt they would be receptive to an email asking them to describe their manufacturing process.

Quote: s2dbaker (from April 11)

I have an image of a Cosmopolitan chip ready to go if that's next.

I guess s2dbaker didn't check in with this thread today. So, s2dbaker, if you have a chip that's different from the ones rdw4potus and I have shown, please do post your image when you get back here. :-)

State: Nevada
City: Lake Tahoe
Casino: Crystal Bay

Last fall, on our first visit to the Reno/Lake Tahoe area, my wife and I spent one day driving around the lake enjoying the scenery. At the north end of the lake are the communities of Crystal Bay and Incline Village, which have a small number of physically small casinos.

The Crystal Bay Club Casino (there again is that "club" thing I don't really understand) is located just inside Nevada, about 200 feet from the California state line. Being really accessible to the Californians is important, so in those 200 feet there are two other casinos that you pass before getting to the Crystal Bay Club, though one of those (Cal Neva Lodge and Casino) has removed its table games.

I visited four casinos on that drive along the north end of Lake Tahoe, one that has removed the table games and three that were not operating their crap tables while I was there. I played my backup game (blackjack) at those three, going +$0, +$0, and -$30 for the afternoon. But I added three chips to the collection, including the one shown below.

This is a Bud Jones chip, and it has a mold design identical (except for the edge inserts) to the Atlantis chip posted previously. For a change, with this chip there is the BJ logo clearly visible on the right hand side of the center insert. (We got another BJ!)

I am slightly amused by the photo used on the center insert. While the Crystal Bay casino is located in Nevada at the extreme north end of Lake Tahoe, I think the photo is taken from California near the south end of the lake, with only the mountain in the far background being in Nevada.

I can't be certain of this, but I think the photo is from the Emerald Bay section of the lake. Compare the image on the chip to this photo I took at Emerald Bay. I didn't have exactly the same shooting position – needed to be about ½ mile to my left – but I think the chip insert and my photo show the same land and water. Whadduyathink? Anyway, it's still Lake Tahoe, and the scenery is beautiful.

Here's my Crystal Bay chip. It's pretty different from Doc's. Both the lake shot in the inset and the chip design are different. I got absolutely killed during my visit to Crystal Bay. I'm pretty sure that if I took $100 and flushed it down the toilet, the process of emptying the bowl would take longer than it took for me to lose $100 $10 per hand playing BJ. Ouch!

Quote: Doc

I guess s2dbaker didn't check in with this thread today. So, s2dbaker, if you have a chip that's different from the ones rdw4potus and I have shown, please do post your image when you get back here. :-)

It looks the same:

Now I have all this blank space!!! I think the picture might be borked. I'll fix it later.

According to mogh.org, the chip that rdw4potus posted was also manufactured by Bud Jones, though I cannot see a BJ logo in the image. That same web site says that both of our chips were first issued in 2003.

Quote: s2dbaker

I'll fix the URL when I can get to a real computer. This phone sucks.

You just need to add a ] after the _sm.jpg and delete the [/img]. Or, equivalently, just delete the [/img.

Quote: rdw4potus

Here's my Crystal Bay chip. It's pretty different from Doc's.

Indeed, but it's interesting how they try to coordinate the color of the insert with the chip. Does the $100, assuming it's black, show a nightime view of the lake? What does the green chip show?

Quote: Doc

I am slightly amused by the photo used on the center insert. While the Crystal Bay casino is located in Nevada at the extreme north end of Lake Tahoe, I think the photo is taken from California near the south end of the lake, with only the mountain in the far background being in Nevada.

Don't be so amused. As you experienced from your own shot of the area, often you have to be in 'foreign' land to take the right picture. I.E. The best pictures of the New York City skyline are taken from New Jersey. The American Falls in Niagra are better seen from Canada.

For what it's worth, I think it's too hard to tell if you have a similar shot as the one in the chip insert.

I find it intriguing that the blue edge spots are neither aligned with, nor centered between, the radial lines. I wonder... Is that deliberate, or is the position random?

Quote: Nareed

What does the green chip show?

Click on that link in my 7:39:10 AM post to see a bunch of their chips, including the $2.50, $25, and $100 chips in this Views-of-Lake-Tahoe series of chips. The black $100 chip has purple edge inserts and a color coordinated purple glow to the lake. The green one just has the evergreen trees to complete its fashion statement.

Quote: s2dbaker

It looks the same:


I'll fix the URL when I can get to a real computer. This phone sucks.

Although you have a lot of white space in the photo, I fixed the link....

Quote: Doc

Click on that link in my 7:39:10 AM post to see a bunch of their chips, including the $2.50, $25, and $100 chips in this Views-of-Lake-Tahoe series of chips. The black $100 chip has purple edge inserts and a color coordinated purple glow to the lake. The green one just has the evergreen trees to complete its fashion statement.

Thanks!

Really nice. A very good color coordination scheme. Very clever.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

I find it intriguing that the blue edge spots are neither aligned with, nor centered between, the radial lines. I wonder... Is that deliberate, or is the position random?

As I have said before, I really, really would like to know more about the manufacturing processes. My understanding is that the "clay" chips are made with steps that include such things as blending the ingredients, forming a cylinder, cutting a slot or slots down the side, filling the slot(s) with whatever different-color material you want as edge inserts, slicing the cylinder into discs, placing the disk and the center insert into the mold, and applying some combination of pressure, temperature, and time.

If the manufacturing really goes something like that, it would probably be very difficult to precisely align the edge insert with the radial lines on the mold for each chip. I have read a couple of articles about some counterfeit chips that were made with the original chip molds. There was a statement (can't remember it exactly) about alignment of the mold marks with the center insert or something -- it said that the original chips were random but that the counterfeits were perfectly aligned, which was one of the identifying characteristics of the counterfeits! If I recall correctly, these counterfeits were not intended to be passed at the casino but were to be sold to unsuspecting collectors.

Edit: I now seem to recall something about the counterfeits having precise alignment between the mold marks on opposite sides of the chip, a step the original manufacturer did not take.

Quote: Doc

I am slightly amused by the photo used on the center insert. While the Crystal Bay casino is located in Nevada at the extreme north end of Lake Tahoe, I think the photo is taken from California near the south end of the lake, with only the mountain in the far background being in Nevada.

I can't be certain of this, but I think the photo is from the Emerald Bay section of the lake. Compare the image on the chip to this photo I took at Emerald Bay. I didn't have exactly the same shooting position – needed to be about ½ mile to my left – but I think the chip insert and my photo show the same land and water. Whadduyathink? Anyway, it's still Lake Tahoe, and the scenery is beautiful.

At first blush, I thought the image on the chip and your photo were a match, but I recalled from my three trips to the area, that one of the distinctive features of Emerald Bay was a pile of rocks in the middle of it. I then checked some images on the internet, and noted that the rocks should have been visible from the point of view of the image on the chip. I suspect Photoshop may have been used to remove the rocks, or it could be a different location. In any case, I don't think it looks like Crystal Bay on the chip.

Quote: Ayecarumba

I recalled from my three trips to the area, that one of the distinctive features of Emerald Bay was a pile of rocks in the middle of it. ... In any case, I don't think it looks like Crystal Bay on the chip.

I agree that the image on the chip does not look much like Crystal Bay. I think it would require a helicopter to get into position to make the peninsula look anything at all like that, and then you would have to Photoshop out the casino you are promoting plus its competition. Not likely.

I think the "pile of rocks" you refer to must be Fannette Island, which has been known by several names over the years and is the only island in the lake. My photo of almost the entirety of Emerald Bay can be seen here, showing Fannette Island in the middle. Perhaps this perspective, if cropped in the right way, would provide the image shown on the chip even better than the one I cited before.

State: Nevada
City: Las Vegas
Casino: Eastside Cannery

Seems like a big jump alphabetically from Crystal Bay to Eastside Cannery, but that's how my collection goes. Too bad there aren't any "D" chips from Fremont Street yet.

When the decision to build Eastside Cannery was made, I think they could have improved the socio-economic value of the tract of land just by bulldozing the Nevada Palace, which occupied the site. Instead, they constructed the new casino in the back yard first, then demolished the "Palace" to make way for a parking lot.

According to an article I found, Bill Wortman was co-owner of the Nevada Palace starting in 1985 and co-founded Cannery Casino Resorts in 1996. He kept the two business entities separate until buying out his Palace partner in 2005, and then sold the one property to the other venture. That enabled them to construct the new, close and demolish the old, then open anew with minimal time (about six months) of zero revenue.

When I was searching for a place from which to take a skyline photo of the Las Vegas Strip, either someone pointed me to or I stumbled across a photo like this one advertising the One Six Sky Lounge at Eastside Cannery. I did not go to the effort of trying to find a way to access that room (other than renting it for a "special event") so I just went for the view from the roof of the Rio that I have posted here before.

While my souvenir chip from the original Cannery was manufactured by B&G, the Eastside Cannery chip is clearly from a different division of Gaming Partners International – it is a LCH version of Paulson's Tophat and Cane. The Eastside chip uses the same cannery girl logo on the center insert as the earlier chip, except this image does not show her hand and the can she is holding in the other one. I cannot see anything on this chip fluorescing under UV light.

I like Eastside Cannery's games, and the location is good, too. It's a little bit unfortunate that the casino isn't more thoughtfully laid out - it's just a big box with machines and tables in it.

Doc - I take it that Diamond's is one of the casinos that you missed in Reno?

Quote: rdw4potus

Doc - I take it that Diamond's is one of the casinos that you missed in Reno?

That one must never have made its way onto my list. I got to the ones downtown within walking distance of each other, Sands (which I didn't consider withing walking distance for a fat geezer + wife), the two just west of the airport, JA's Nugget, and Grand Sierra. I didn't realize that there was another within the perimeter I had already covered and thought I had only missed the outliers.

I'm pretty sure that my wife is glad that I didn't know about any others. Before the Reno/Tahoe trip, I had posted a question here someplace asking whether I had overlooked any place I should be going, but Diamond's must have fallen through the crack. One more excuse for a return visit.

Quote: Doc

That one must never have made its way onto my list. I got to the ones downtown within walking distance of each other, Sands (which I didn't consider withing walking distance for a fat geezer + wife), the two just west of the airport, JA's Nugget, and Grand Sierra. I didn't realize that there was another within the perimeter I had already covered and thought I had only missed the outliers.

I'm pretty sure that my wife is glad that I didn't know about any others. Before the Reno/Tahoe trip, I had posted a question here someplace asking whether I had overlooked any place I should be going, but Diamond's must have fallen through the crack. One more excuse for a return visit.

Trust me, you're not missing much! As we locals like to call it, the "Hooker Hotel"