When I first moved to Reno in 1994, I had already been collecting chips for a while, from both Northern Nevada casinos, and from California card rooms, but I had never purchased an obsolete chip just to collect.

One afternoon, I was calling around to various coin dealers when one dealer said they had chips. I immediately drove to the dealers house / office, where I found that he had many chips for sale. After talking with this guy for hours, we came up with a stack of chips that I was going to buy. We agreed that we would look up each chip in TCR #1, and that he would discount from there. After going through all of the chips, we had one left. I had never seen it before, and neither of us could find it in the book. It was a $5 Club Harlem from Reno. I asked the dealer what he wanted for the chip, he told me that I could have it for $4.00. I figured that I couldn't get stuck too bad for $4.00, so I bought it.

Within several months of the purchase, Al Moe has a store and a catalog / magazine in his store in Reno. He had the same $5 Club Harlem chip that I bought advetised for $200. I called a different dealer who bought the chip from me for $100. I was estatic, until about 4 years later, when I found out that the chip sold for $800 - $1,000! I guess that it goes to show you that today's junk might be tomorrow's treasure.