LAS VEGAS - In all their years of dropping casino chips, matchbooks
and swizzle sticks into drawers and shoeboxes around their home
in Glencoe, Ill., Christine and Sheldon Smith never knew their
hobby was shared by many.
Then, on a trip to Las Vegas eight years ago, the couple stopped
by a gambling-supply shop a few miles from the Strip to browse.
They left with an obsession. In the store was a booth where
a vendor was buying and selling chips and other gambling memorabilia.
"We were like, 'You sell chips?'" said Christine Smith, 61,
who totes a black shoulder bag adorned with dice and playing
card icons. "We had no idea people did this.
"And right then and there we bought our first chip, a $1 chip
from the Dunes Hotel that cost us $12. But it had to be our
first chip, because the Dunes was where my husband first took
me out to dinner," she recalled.
More than 1,200 items later, the Smiths -- who met in Las
Vegas -- found themselves back in town this weekend in a ballroom
where about 100 casino memorabilia dealers are trading their
wares at the 15th annual convention of the Casino Chip and Gaming
Token Collectors Club. They also founded the Chicagoland Chippers,
a group of a few dozen aficionados who gather in homes or occasionally
at the bar at the Grand Victoria riverboat casino in Elgin to
compare their stashes and do some swapping.
Chips as art
Such collections may seem peculiar to some, but the exposition
floor being prowled by 5,000 attendees during the weekend conference
bulged with the accouterments, both obvious and more head-scratching,
of gambling's culture and history.
An additional room was opened up briefly on Thursday, for
instance, so that three paper-goods collectors could show off
their extensive collections of casino-branded napkins, sugar
cubes, freebie coupons, old Wayne Newton show tickets and more.
Many stood in that room before a blown-up aerial photo of the
Strip, debating its date with the scrutiny others might apply
to a Picasso at the Art Institute.
"The chip collector has a love of history because the chips
come from institutions that may or may not any longer be in
existence," Christine Smith said. "I think they're artwork.
Many of them are just absolutely beautiful."
Indeed, it is the vast variety and quantity of casino chips
and other memorabilia that allows these hobbyists their quest.
Marilyn Winn, president of the Bally's and Paris casinos in
Las Vegas, told attendees she estimates there are more than
20,000 different chips currently in play in Nevada.
Partly in reaction to the collecting culture, casinos now
create limited-edition chips for various holidays -- Valentine's
Day and Halloween are particularly popular -- as well as for
special events like boxing matches or anniversaries. As collector
Chuck Tomarchio of Joliet noted, it's the ultimate way the house
can win, issuing a $25 chip that cost 75 cents to make for people
who will never gamble with them.
"There is so much out there that you either go broke or go
crazy or both if you try to collect everything that ever was
created, so I backed off," said Tomarchio, who has about 8,000
chips.
Serious aficionado
Rick Pokracki, 43, of Plainfield, Ill., by contrast, is fascinated
by chips both with riverboat images on them and ones from illegal
Chicago-area casinos of old. He traveled to Las Vegas with a
small valise stuffed with binders holding chips to trade as
well as books about chip history, and he brought an ultraviolet
flashlight to shine on certain chips that have holograms indicating
the manufacturer.
Many have their pride and joys as well as their holy grails.
Pokracki is most proud of a $1 chip from the defunct Holiday
Queen Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas that he bought at a flea market
for $3. It's now worth $3,600. He says the object of his desire
changes often but at the moment, he's in hot pursuit of dime
chips from such places as Al Capone's Rock Garden.
In some cases, chip collectors are converts from other collections.
Tomarchio calls himself a frustrated coin collector. "Chip collecting
is just so much more fun and less laborious," he said.
Many enthusiasts have gone so far as to have chips minted
with personalized artwork that serves as a sort of latter-day
coat-of-arms.
The Smiths, for instance, have a chip with images of playing
cards, pink flamingos and the pyramid-shaped Luxor hotel, whereas
Prokracki's has a riverboat on one side in which little white
Illinois-shaped puffs stick out of the boat's smokestacks.
For some at the Vegas convention, the endeavor is serious
business. Al Poluyanskis of Machesney Park, Ill., inherited
a collection of more than 50,000 items from his uncle, a Las
Vegas ballroom dance instructor who died in 1999.
His uncle left instructions to Poluyanskis to sell off the
casino memorabilia to provide an income for Poluyanskis' aunt,
the man's widow.
"I don't actually collect anything, although the Las Vegas
memorabilia is really very interesting and we've learned to
enjoy it, and we've tried to learn all we can about these items,"
said Poluyanskis, building manager for the Rockford Register
Star who had a booth at the show and sells items the rest of
the year on the Internet.
"Some people think it's junk, and it may be junk, but it's
our junk and we love it," Christine Smith said with a laugh.
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Cashing in on relics
What buys what at the convention:
$25,000: An early 1950s $5 casino chip from the Las Vegas
Club Casino
$900: A 1960s-era ashtray from the Overland Bar in Reno, Nev.
$225: A lighter from the Palace Club and Cafe in Fallon, Nev.
$150: A pair of dice printed with "Merry Christmas 2000" from
the Hard Rock Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas
$25: An ice bucket from the grand opening of the Harrah's
Del Rio Hotel-Casino in Laughlin, Nev.
$5: A 1989 snow globe that contains the Stardust Hotel-Casino
and plays the song "Stardust"
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