My interesting trip to Southern Nevada last weekend. I began by flying in to Las Vegas, from Tucson. The original plan was to be picked up at McCarran by my wife and we would head to Laughlin for a dinner meeting with a relative and then stay over-night at the Colorado Belle. Unfortunately, she was driving in from Los Angeles and had left later than planned. I had to catch a limo ride (eat your hearts out Limospuds) from McCarran to the Tropicana, so I could cool my heels at the Legends Hall of Fame and maybe visit with Rich. As usual, Rich was not there and who ever is working there has a stock message. "Oh, Rich will be in later." But I don’t think he ever is. I’m beginning to think he does not exist, although two complete strangers that I met during this trip asked me if I knew Rich. My stock reply is, Yes, I saw him once.

Since Rich wasn’t around, I figured I could bide my time over at the Excalibur and play some poker. Eventually my wife would arrive and we could head for Laughlin. I bought-in to a 2 – 5 Hold ‘em game and quickly saw that one of the players was Mills Lane. Mills is currently promoting boxing matches and is also known as Judge Lane (from TV) and Referee Lane from the boxing ring. He appeared to be a good player and when I asked about an autograph he was more than willing to oblige me. I quickly went over to the Excalibur cage (they always have new, uncirculated $1 chips in the main cage) and go five new 1’s. The cashier wanted to be helpful and asked if I also wanted a 4th Birthday $5 LE? How could I so no? So I added another LE trader to my book of traders. I then went back to the poker table and got two autographed chips from Mills Lane.

Four hours later I finally heard from my wife and she still had not departed from the Greater Los Angeles Area. Knowing that we needed to be in Laughlin for an 8:30 dinner, it was a cinch that she was going to be late, and if she was my ride, then I was going to be late also. This called for a change in plan, which was for her to drive directly to Laughlin and I would take a cab to the house and use a second vehicle that we had left there the week before and meet her in Laughlin. I While she would be late, I would just be able to make. Needless to say, I met the relative (her cousin) and she was very, very late, but we had a nice time at the Pioneer. While at the Pioneer I checked for new LE’s, but there were none since their last issue (Millennium, I think).

We ended up at the Colorado Belle and I went to the cage to acquire two plastic cases for my Mills Lane autographed chips. The Belle does not give out plastic cases, however, if you buy any LE, they will put it in a plastic case. So, I asked for two of whatever the most recent LE was. I planned to remove the LE’s from the cases, and re-use the cases for my autograph chips. Was I ever surprised when the cashier said that the most recent LE’s were River Run LE’s and that they had just been released that very day?

Afterwards, I went to both the Edgewater and Ramada Express. Neither one had a River Run LE (the latest Ramada LE was the St. Patrick’s Day issue, and the latest Edgewater LE was the River Stampede LE). I did not have an opportunity to check any other casinos in Laughlin. However, while at the Colorado Belle (late night) I asked the main cage attendant if they had any "foreign" chips or tokens. Three $10 Silver Strikes were pulled out. One was for the Gold River (now River Palms) and two were from the Colorado Central Station Casino (a Year of the Tiger issue and a Year of the Dragon issue). I bought all three. The cage attendant, whom I have gotten to know over the past year, continually tells me of a Colorado Belle house $5 chip that is different from their regular (prevalent) $5 house issue. Since the Belle currently has about 99 % of the $5 house issue sitting in racks at the main cage, he has, over time, looked for one of these elusive chips that he swears does exist. In fact, other people in the cage have agreed with him that such a chip does exist. (NOTE: As I have reported before, the Belle is currently, purposefully using their entire supply of $5 LE’s as their in-play $5 chips. In fact, I have found that within a few days (to a week) after release of a new LE, they purposely put all of them into play, instead of holding them in reserve to issue as new, uncirculated chips.) While at the Belle’s poker table, I found another blemished $1 chip, I now have about 10 different blemished $1 chips, which speaks poorly of the Bud Jones quality control process.

I would also like to point out that I have found that there are two different $1 chips at the Colorado Belle, and I am not certain that the TCR’s notation of two different $1 chips is consistent with this more noticeable difference. The difference I have noted is the positioning of the words Colorado Belle to the 20 red and blue inserts, which are clustered into 4 groups of 5 contiguous inserts that are blue/red/blue/red/blue. For some chips a set of 5 contiguous inserts appear over the middle of "Colorado Belle" starting roughly between the R and A and ending just above the B. For other chips, a set of contiguous inserts begin at the C and a second set of contiguous inserts end at the trailing E. Only these two variations occur.

We spent the night at the Belle and picked up a few more slot club cards. After a late breakfast we headed (in a two vehicle caravan) for Las Vegas. It was Friday and whenever we pass through Searchlight during daylight hours, we try to stop in at the antique shops. It was in one of these shops that the shopkeeper asked me if I knew Rich from the Tropicana. "Oh" I said, has Rich been through here? Sure has. Bought some of my ashtrays and now people tell me has real high prices on them. After some more chitchat, she told me that Leland Sandquist, son of Sandy Sandquist was at the art boutique next door. It was Leland’s dad (Sandy) that ran a majority of casinos in Searchlight, almost since day one. How could I pass up an opportunity to talk to this link to Searchlight’s gaming history? Well, I couldn’t. I went next door to the art boutique and sure enough, there was Leland. He was very pleasant and very talkative. He had several stories and we talked for about 45 minutes. The art boutique that we were in was once Sandy’s casino. The antique shop next door was once the Oasis. Leland was not aware of the values associated to his father’s chips, nor did he know that they are cataloged and listed in several price guides. When I pulled out a price guide, he didn’t want to look, but he was glad to see his father’s legacy was living on beyond his father, and likely beyond Leland. Leland said that for years he had given stuff away and now had no real tangible artifacts except the building. He did say that he knows that there are about 30 of the Sandy Sandquist $5’s and 10 – 20 of the Sandy Sandquist $25’s, outside collectors hands, but not available to himself. (This may or not be true, as I have no way to confirm his statement. Although his statement was genuine, it is because there is an obvious conflict between the chips owner and Leland that gives rise to the old adage that there are two sides to every argument.)

From there we went to Searchlight Nugget for lunch and to stock up on their re-issue of their $5 chip. I was lucky to win a couple of chips at their one blackjack table. This place is very interesting. They have the one blackjack table, one very old, one armed bandit type slot machine, and then about 50 newer slots/video poker/keno machines. The blackjack table uses $1 slot machine tokens and $5 chips. By request, or if you are a big winner, there is a pull drawer on the dealer’s side of the table that has $25 (green) chips. The dealers have no uniforms and almost look as though they can rotate from a player position to the dealer’s position. The dealer I had was very, very, VERY unlike Las Vegas dealers. Regardless of your hand (even when you bust), he would not take down your money until after his hand is played out. He also takes down your cards before he pays you off (on a winning hand). Very casual. Anyway, it was time to leave, so we headed the caravan towards Las Vegas. Along the way about all one can do is listen to the radio. I had a local (Las Vegas) station on and they were hyping the World’s Largest Yard Sale, which was slated for the following day (Saturday) at the Silverton Hotel and Casino parking lot and RV lot. So, after arriving in town, we did dinner and then went to bed early not wanting to miss the Yard Sale.

Well, bright and early Saturday morning we headed for the Yard Sale. It was at the Yard Sale that I was asked by a vendor if I knew Rich over at the Tropicana. Man, this guy gets around. At the sale I ended up with an nice Sahara ashtray, a pre fire MGM Grand fold-out post card, an El Rancho dealers tie (very common), an El Rancho key tag (no key, just the plastic room tag), some dice, a 1969 Horseshoe Club encased cent, a copper DI divot tool, a Sands swizzle stick, and a couple decks of Aladdin cards. I also picked up a baggie of metal CIC’s from several casinos, with several denominations, and a black chip with 12 silver inserts and 4 SUITs. Where the inlay should be there is a metal disk (on both sides) and what appears to be a missing sticker. I will scan this at some point and post a UFC question. Well, that is the extent of my chipping adventures for that trip. Until next time, happy chipping.

Jim Follis