I just got on the Board and there was the sad notice that "Bob Mera passed away".
I am not ashamed to admit that I cried and went downstairs and shared the sad news with my wife. A part of me has also passed away because Bob and I had grown very close over the years through our mutual love of chip collecting. It was Bob who got me started in this crazy hobby when I met him at his Chip shop in the Ocean One Mall on the Boardwalk across from Caesar's Casino in Atlantic City in May of 1992. The first two chips I purchased from Bob were a Golden Nugget and Hilton(original Hilton) Atlantic City $1.00 chips. Neither of us knew at that time how signifigant the purchases were to be in getting me hooked on chip collecting and putting me where I am today in this great hobby. As I sit here in what I affectionately refer to as R.I.C.H. International Headquarters (a former upstairs bedroom) surrounded by boxes and cabinets and albums and racks filled with literarally 10,000's of chips that day in May when I first met Bob is very vivid in my memory. I had been playing roulette at Caesars and had luckily won a few dollars and had wandered into the Ocean One Mall to relax a little before going back to the roulette tables. As I wondereed aimlessly past various shops, I looked up and there were 100's and 100's of Casino chips on display in the windows of Bob's Shop THE GAMING EMPORIUM. When I entered the shop Bob greeted me and we immediately got in to a discussion of collecting Casino Chips and when I left I was the proud owner of the two $1.00 chips I mentioned above and more importantly I was hooked on chip collecting and I had made the first of many, many new frienrds who I would meet thru chipping. The rest is history, seven years later I now have 1000's of chips because I met Bob Mera, I have written a Catalog on Atlantic City roulette chips with the encouragement of Bob who is the one who affectionately gave me the Title OF "MR.Roulette". Bob encouraged me to get involved with the formation of the Atlantic City Chapter of the CC>CC and he nominated me to be Secretary of the Chapter. Bob and I talked about, bought, sold and traded 1000"s of chips from each other over the past seven years and with every chip there was a story (and some of them actually were TRUE). God how my spirits would be lifted on a cold and damp winter day when I would bang on the back door of Bob's most recent store located on the Boardwalk near the Tropicana Casino.Bob would greet me with a warm handshake and a smile and say " MR. Roulette, what's happening and what goodies do you have for me today." About two or three hours later we would say good bye after trading or sellling various chips and Bob would say "who do you think got the best of the deal today" and we would both claim to have chip remorse because we both thought we had gotten the short end of a trade, then we would laugh and I would go back out into the cold and damp"Real World" and as I drove home to Delaware I just couldn't wait till my next trip to A.C. to see Bob and to do our thing. Bob is gone from this Earth, hopefully to a kinder gentler place but just as a piece of me died when Bob passed away a much larger and better piece of Bob will remain I my Heart and Memory. Bob you will be missed, but you never will be forgotten.
I love you Bob, your friend Jerry