I mention this because it just goes to show that even today, some of these little pieces of history are hidden away, just waiting to be found!

A close family friend, who knows I collect and dabbles in the hobby himself, was walking through his neigborhood as part of his recovery from a heart condition. This happened about 2 years ago this summer, in the San Fernando Valley (Granada Hills) of Los Angeles, CA. It was late in the afternoon and as he was retuning to his house, he saw a Garage Sale going on at a house at the end of the block and he stopped to see what was there. Being late in the day for a Garage Sale, the owner was just packing everything up. The friend spotted some chips on the table, about 10 of them, and they were all brown, all from the Four Queens and all 25c chips.

He asked how much, they guy said a quarter a piece and with that, they were sold! Although the friend dabbled in collecting chips, his big suit is coins, currency, stamps and few exotic things (space memorabilia), so he had no idea what he was getting, only that at that price, the answer was, I'll take them all! A couple of weeks later he brought them to me and I gave him an evaluation (without benefit of my price guides, as we were at a funeral!). Although I can't recall the exact quantities of each different release, he did have 2 of the 1st issue arrowdies, several of the Nevada mold, several of the DIECARDS mold and maybe 1 or 2 of the H/C mold and I told him he probably had something REALLY special with the arrowdie.

Later on he gave me one of the arrowdie's, let me repeat that, he GAVE me the arrowdie, and asked if I could let him know the book values on the others. After returning home, I looked them up and I too was shocked at the value of the arrowdie. I contacted him right away and offered it back. He said, "No. You told me it was probably special and I wanted you to have it." So, it seems that gems like these are still out there, just waiting to be found again!

Jim