I called Paul-Son's in Las Vegas today and I felt like I was in the friggin' Twilight Zone!!!

Charles Endy was not in today and I spoke with the employee "Jason". He remembered talking to me in person last week about the Cuban Chips and was standing RIGHT THERE when I was looking at the real Cuban Chips in the white paulson's box. (see earlier posts). I asked him if he would send me a fax of the real Cuban chips because I had a friend who collects Cubans and he would like to see a Xerox of them.

Well, you would have thought that I was Ken Starr or Bob Woodward. First he said he couldn't send me a fax copy of them because they had "all been sold". I asked how that was possible because just 7 days ago I had seen the workorders and full color artwork on PaulSon letterhead for the repos of the Cubans. He insisted that 35,000 of them had already been sold. He told me that it was a chip that PaulSon had done to sell themselves (retail in their shop). He denied that they had made or were making ANY Cuban repros for a private customer. I asked WHERE the Cuban repros had been sold and he told me there in their shop. (Yeah Right!) Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I told him that I wasn't talking about their International Flags series or ANYTHING ELSE... I was talking about the repros of the Cuban Chips that I had seen the workorders and color artwork for last Saturday (June 19th). He again told me that ALL the "sets" of the Cuban repros had already been sold... but they MIGHT be getting more. I told Jason that I would like a set and he told me that there were 1,200 in a set and sold ONLY by the set!! (Told you this was Twilight Zone time...)

Trying a different approach, I asked Jason if he would just Xerox the real chips that had been in the white box last week. He told me that Charlie (Endy) had locked them up in the safe. He also told me that the real Cuban chips belonged to Charlie. I told Jason that I thought that was odd, because Charlie had told me a week ago that he didn't collect ANY chips at all... and wasn't even very fond of chip collectors in general (even though he WAS polite and helpful to me the two times I visited there during the Convention)

Jason told me that the Cuban repros (which he said were "all sold out") had the year 1998 on them... and they were waiting for Gaming to approve another batch for this year with "1999" on them.

It was getting just too weird for me.... so I thanked Jason and hung up.

Bottom line to all of this...

I was in PaulSons Las Vegas on Friday afternoon (6-18-99). I asked Charlie about getting some information for me on my Russian Marilyn Monroe Casino Chip but did not have one with me. He told me to bring one in the next day and he would get the info he needed from the chip.

During that Friday afternoon visit, I overheard a phone conversation with a customer about not being able to do a color match that the customer had wanted. I saw pending workorders and full color artwork for Cuban Chip repros. The artwork was in full color and had one chip per page and looked like it had been printed on a color lazer printer. It had the PaulSon logo in color at the top of the page and specs along the bottom of the page. The chip on the page was about 5" round. I don't remember the names on the work orders but they did NOT say PaulSons or InHouse!! I saw approx 6 old Cuban Casino chips in a box. (see earlier posts)

I returned to PaulSons on Saturday (6-19-99) and saw the box containing the Cubans still on the shelf where they had been left the afternoon before. The color pages of the artwork was next to the box. I had a conversation with Charlie about researching my Russian Marilyn Monroe chip and he wrote down all the details and said he would get back to me with the info on the original Russian order. I offered to give Charlie the Russian Marilyn Monroe Casino Chip and he refused twice... telling me that he did NOT collect any chips at all.

I just talked to Jason AGAIN about 15 minutes ago at (702)384-2425. I asked if he would just fax me a copy of the color art work on the repro Cuban Chips. He told me that they are called "phasers" and that Charlie had all the paperwork regarding the Cuban repros locked up. He told me to call and talk with Charlie about it on Monday.

This is TOO weird for me... I am sorry that I started something on this board that I can't seem to finish. But, I KNOW what I SAW and HEARD last Friday and Saturday - and I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone now.... Anyone reading this who lives in Vegas who wants to followup on this??

This is a LONG SHOT.... BUT, I have heard about some normalization with Cuba on the horizon - is it at all POSSIBLE that PaulSon is making chips for the new casinos that are sure to follow the fall of Castro?? Is there a Pulitzer Prize in here for an enterprising young reporter!?!?!?!

Steve Snowden