Last weekend I was at an antique store in Phoenix, AZ and happened across a box of green chips. Not being familiar with "Wood Haven" I still guessed that they were probably from a California card room, which turned out to be right.

Happily, they are of a denomination not recorded before in either Eastman's guide or Armin's guide.

The box contained exactly 98 Wood Haven, 50 cent chips. 23 have the hot-stamps worn off (100%) on one side. Only 1 has reasonable "gold" left on the hot-stamp (both sides) while 5 have remnants of "gold" left on the hot-stamps. All the others have the yellow of the hot-stamp remaining.

These obviously had use and have plenty of table jam in the nooks and crannies! What I found interesting, and perhaps someone might have some insight here, is that the box they were in was an old box for the C.W. Rice Co., L-mold chips.

The box has two round stickers, the size of a chip with a line drawing of a hot-stamped C.W.Rice Co. Club Room Supplies, Vacaville, CA 707-448-2485 and the L-mold pattern. Stamped at one end is the word "GREEN", which is the color of the Wood Haven chips.

But what is really interesting is that one of the stickers really is hot-stamped (silver foil) for the South Bowl .50 cent chip (w/4 suits)!

What, if anything was common between South Bowl and Wood Haven that the Wood Haven chips would end up in the South Bowl box?

The scanned chip is what the majority look like.

Jim