Jill may have had a good week of chipping, but I had a good weekend! At yard sales, estate sales and at an antique fair, I managed to acquire the following items:

A Las Vegas Club encased cent "Home of the .49 Breakfast" (any guesses for year?), Frontier dice (will scan later), a Wilbur Clark's Desert Inn ashtray (green, stackable) for .10 cents, a Frontier ashtray not in Anderson's book from when the Frontier was a "Hughes" property, dozens of matchbooks (front-strikers, unused: Thunderbird, Stardust, Cal-Neva, Stockmen's, Las Vegas Club, Aladdin, Ranchinn, plus some cheesy motels on the strip), 2- Joe Brown's Horseshoe Club triangular ashtrays, an older Tropicana ashtray, a jeton from Weisbaden Germany, and last but not least, the chip scanned below.

This beauty was in a display case with 10 -15 current Laughlin chips. I almost looked past it and nearly missed a good find. The antique dealer wanted me to buy it for his stated amount, and was making it difficult for me to "think about it" and contact him later. The event was an antique fair and many vendors were from out of town. He told me he was from the Phoenix area and would not be back to Tucson until next November. Not being familiar with Joby's Monte Carlo, and that I did not have my resource materials with me, I had to pass on the $15.00 asking price. After a few minutes I remembered that Norm B. had been kind enough to have recently sent his older TCR and C/W guides to my son Casey. (Again, thanks Norm!)

I called my son (Casey) and asked him to look up the chip and he told me that Joby's Monte Carlo had two $5 chips, one was a "P" value and the other was an "R" value in the 6th edition. I nearly choked and couldn't get back to the dealer's table fast enough. I nearly tore my underware off getting the 15 dollars out of my pocket, and left a very happy chipper.

When I got home I did some additional checking and believe this chip to be a nice enough example to warrant a $300 valuation. It has several minor edge dings and nicks, almost no wear and is slightly dingy (dirty). The Hot Stamp is strong and the inserts vs. Hot Stamp orientation is the same on both sides. In fact, flipping the chip over (left to right or right to left) the Hot Stamp remains right side up (in the same position). In other words, looking at the scan, the insert at the bottom is under the "L" and "B" of "CRYSTAL BAY" on both sides of the chip.

Casey and Norm, thank you!

JDF