Since it’s a little slow on the board today, I thought it might be a good time to write up a chip mystery I have been investigating. It all began when I strayed from my normal collecting areas…

In November of this year, in response to a great offer on the Chip Board, I purchased an obsolete chip from Curacao, a island neighbor to Aruba, and another island in the Dutch Antilles (yes, a start down a new slippery slope). The chip was a $5 hot stamped chip on the scroll mold from the long gone Curacao Hilton. Shortly before receiving the chip, I looked it up in Ralph Pollack’s Guide to the chips of the Caribbean and discovered that the chip was not listed. A corresponding hot stamped $1 chip was listed, but was very rare.

Unlike the chip in the guide, which was not in good shaped, the chip that arrived was in fantastic condition. There was some wear in the hot stamp, but the chip looked perfect. When I began to line up the chip for a scan, I noticed some writing etched in the chip. I scanned the chip and scoured pictured to decipher the writing on the chip. What I discovered was a stamp in the chip (with no foil), seemingly underneath the hot stamp for the Curacao Hilton. Upon some examination, I determined that the writing on top said, “The Village” and the writing on the bottom said, “Chelsea.” I noticed that the “Village” hot stamp aligned almost perfectly with the inserts.

Being a collector of New York underground club chips, I immediately wondered if I had stumbled upon a chip that connected two of my chip collecting areas, Caribbean and New York. The Village could refer to Greenwich Village, just South of Chelsea in Manhattan. I also wondered if the foil could have been removed from the Village chip and a false Curacao Hilton stamp placed on top to fool collectors. Remember that this chip was not even included in the Pollack Guide. Not sure how to react, I contacted three Caribbean chip collectors, including Ralph Pollack, and the seller, to get their opinions. The seller had several other $5 Curacao Hilton chips and informed me that I had the only one with additional stamping on the chip. None of the collectors told me they believed this to be a counterfeit chip, and Ralph believed that it was genuine. Based upon the limited information I gave him, he suggested that I may be on the right track that it was also a chip used in a New York club. Charles Kaplan focused on the scroll mold, commonly used in Europe, and thought the chip might have been recycled by or from a English casino.

Below is a comparison of a chip without a second stamp and the first chip I received.

So now, I had a mystery. What was the other stamp from? Could I verify it? I began by researching the chip’s age. According to Ralph Pollack’s book, the Curacao Hilton was open from 1967 to 1971. He informed me in an e-mail, though, that the chip could have been used from the 1970s to 1980s.

I did a number of internet searches for mention of a club in New York called, “The Village,” but came up empty.

I re-scanned the chip at a higher resolution so I could look at a larger image, and I began to see faint images of a stamp in the center of the chip, perhaps partially obscured by the “CH stamp.” At first, I thought I could make out a 25 in the center. When I began to trace the “2,” however, I quickly noticed it was a “₤,” the British pound sign. The right digit, although partial, is consistent with the number, “5.”

This changed my whole investigation! Now, I was looking for a casino in England. Charles Kaplan’s insight based upon the scroll appeared to be right!

I started my search in four ways. I did many searches on the internet for an English casino in the Chelsea district of London, I visited Jason Skinner’s web-site on the casinos of England, I directly e-mailed all of the English participants of our great Chip Board for any information they might have and I asked for information about The Village casino in Chelsea on the Chip Board.

I found an entry for the Village Club in Sloan Square, London, on Jason’s site!! Jason confirmed that Sloan Square is, in fact, in the Chelsea district of London. Fantastic. The site did not list any chips, though, and Jason had no additional information about the casino.

David Spragg confirmed that Scroll mold chips were common in English casinos in the 1970s and 1980s. John Benedict informed me that The Gaming Table listed a casino called The Village in London which closed in 1982.

Through Gene Trimble, Robert Eisenstadt and David Spragg, I learned that Burt Co. manufactured Scroll mold chips at the time these chips were probably made, but that Burt Co. did not hot stamp chips. Instead, they sold the blanks to other manufacturers, who hot stamped them on their own. The English distributor for Burt Co. in the 1970s to 1980s was a company called Jay Myers Co., which is no longer in business. As the distributor, Jay Myers Co. may have done the hot stamping.

I checked on Robert Eisenstadt’s valuable chip mold pages on his web-site to see if he had any useful information for me about the scroll mold. On there, I learned about a casino equipment company called Hispania Casino Equipment. According to David Spragg, Hispania purchased the scroll mold in 1984, and continues to make chips on that mold today (on a side note, they also make plain mold chips that look on their web-site just like antique die cut chips).

I tried to find references to the Jay Myers Co. on the internet, but got nowhere. Robert Eisenstadt wrote me that another company, London Casino Supplies, had bought out Jay Myers Co. I have yet to find their e-mail address so I can contact them. John did give me their street address, but I have yet to write them.

After extensive searching for the Village on google, I found a potential monopoly investigation report by a British agency on a merger of the owner of the Village Club, Trident Television PLC, with two other gaming companies: Grand Metropolitan PLC and Pleasurama. Apparently, Trident bought the Village Club in October 1982, along with the Connoisseur and managed its casinos under its subsidiary company, Trident Casinos Ltd. According to Wikipedia, Trident merged into Grand Metropolitan sometime in 1982.

The only other useful reference I found was an old newspaper article. On November 13, 1983, New York Times writer, Walter Goodman wrote an article about London casinos. His primary casino, which served as his reference point, was the “Chelsea Village Casino Club.” In the article, one “local” described the Village Club as “a noddy little club.” The writer described the club as follows

”four tables and the spirit of a very low-key neighborhood pub. There I was able to play blackjack for $4.50 a hand and roulette for 75 cents a spin.”

Trying to find other avenues for information, I came across the UK gambling commission, formerly The Gaming Board of Great Britain. Unfortunately, they don’t keep records on closed casinos. Instead, they sent me to a website (www.gamingfloor.com) where I could find information about the gaming industry. I found a section on associations and contacted several. First, I wrote the British Casino Association (BCA), but they merely responded that they could not help with chips (my request for information was much broader). Next, I wrote the British Amusement and Catering Trades Association (BACTA). As far as I know, I received no response. Finally, I contacted the Casinos Operators Association (C.O.A. UK). In a friendly e-mail, they informed me that they passed my information on to its members. Soon thereafter, I received an e-mail from an individual who “worked at the Casanova Club in Mayfair in 1973/1974.” She wrote that “Most of the London Casinos then used John Huxley & Sons for their chips. They are now called TCSJOHNHUXLEY. I am sure someone there may be able to help you.” Although the author listed herself as “Club Secretary,” I don’t know which club she represented.

So, I then proceeded to research John Huxley & Sons and TCS John Huxley. I managed to track down an e-mail for TCS John Huxley (tcs.websales@btconnect.com), but my message was returned as undeliverable.

The upshot is that, although it has been a lot of fun, I still don’t know where the second stamp is from. If anyone can provide me with any information to help me track down the origins of this chip, I would really appreciate it!

I would really like to thank the following for all of the help they have given me so far: John Benedict, Robert Eisenstadt, Charles Kaplan, Peter Nathan, Ralph Pollack, Terry Schaffer, Jason Skinner, Gene Trimble, Carol-Ann Scott of the Gambling Commission, Tracy Damestani (BCA), Linda Bowes (COA) and Anne-Marie Mollins (organization unknown). If I have inadvertently left anyone out, I apologize, but your contributions have all been highly appreciated.

I hope you enjoyed this story of investigation and intrigue.

Michael Siskin