Good discussion topic. Got to admit Jim, my chip interest hit the doldrums this summer. I acquired some movie memorabilia featuring gambling, just couldn't get interested in spending $ on chips. Jim Mundings edition of the Reno Show that Fredrickson and Anderson started last year got me revved up again though! Chips are definitly the centerpiece of the hobby, appologies to the other Mark E!

I guess when I hold a chip, I just can't help but wonder what the players who bet this chip were feeling, where were they standing, what else was going on. Looking at postcards and photos of some of the unlikely homes of some of my favorite chips enhances the piece for me. Don't have any ashtrays but lots of details from them like names and slogans lend some flavor to the story of the chips associated with them. Matchbooks, swizzles, coupons etc add up too. Just as this hobby is as much about the people you meet in it as the chips, the guys that put these things on the table make the pieces live too, Smiths, Harrah, Sahati, Wynn, Steiner, and on and on! Glimpses of their personalities through memorabilia adds to the weight of the chip.

A good example of this amalgam of memorablilia and info and chips we have here on the board happened not to long ago when Mark Englebertsen posted Alpine Club ashtrays from Ely and Idaho. This allowed Gene T. to finally track the Nevada enterprise of Ted Tittinger whose Idaho chips were in his collection.