I am happy to see the interest in Crest and Seal chips today. This interest and Travis’ question about the MW, MM or WW chip leads me make these comments:

(1) I have had some of these WW chips for a long time. The last time I acquired any was over 6 years ago. At that time it was difficult to give them away! How times change! I often gave such chips out as freebies to people I traded with or sold chips to. Then, to be worth much, a chip generally had to be from either (a) a known casino/illegal club or (b) be a generic poker chip that the powers-that-be would code, and they would not code monogram chips. It was news to me this year that these are attributed. It would be good if Ed Hertel or someone would keep a file (on the internet?) of the documentation of these attributions.

(2) It is “WW.” For this, I thank John Benedict. Chippers should bookmark or print out the Old English letters at this site that John found for us:
http://www.capspro.com/oldenglish.html

(3) As John says, the US Playing Card Co records tell us that “the chips were shipped from Cincinnati to a Louis S. Cohn Co. in Butte, on Jan. 25, 1929. Known in five colors. Per USPC Library.” Steve Goodrich identifies the chips as coming from Walker’s Saloon in Bute. and Travis was told “I have that
chip but have it listed as being from Dayton, OH; the Oaks Lodge, W. Mills, owner.” What I want to emphasize is that if we identified the illegal club or game from the shipping records, we would conclude that the chips were from the “Louis S. Cohen Casino.” Probably the latter was a sports supply store, cigar store or just a shipping address. Illegal club people wouldn’t likely give the name and address of their gambling den and principal to the shippers! It is good to remember that -- that an illegal club can’t be identified just from the shipping record, unless the shipping name matches the imprint on the chip or it is shipped to a known gambling king pin, etc.