Questions on the drill hole.
I have a few thoughts on drill holes and I’d like to hear other peoples thoughts. Let me first say that I’m fairly new to the hobby and I’m still trying to understand the history of things. I know that casinos have drilled chips to cancel them. (A physical way of altering a chip to make it inactive) when a new chip is issued, it is usually a different design to change the chips appearance.
I have heard that after casinos drilled their chips they were thrown out, and if someone went into the garbage they could get as many as they wanted. BTW… I don’t believe that would happen. It seems to me that the casino would keep them safe or destroy them. I have heard that they send them back to the manufacturer and they did the drilling. But then what would happen to them?
I have seen some of the early chips made into keychains… for example the first issue Pioneer chips (very rare), usually found with an old chain through it. So I gather that probably at some point they were sold at the gift store or given out, ect. These are usually drilled at top on one side. This tells me the drill hole was intentionally drilled centered for esthetic reasons. My guess is that they would have drilled at least a box full when doing this drilling. Why would they only drill a few? So my guess is that at one point that these early chips that were drilled for this purpose existed in good numbers drilled. When I see a drilled chip I think there is a bunch that were drilled the same way, (where they are)… who knows?
A good example I have seen that shows this theory is the Moulin Rouge chips that have been selling in numbers. Seems like there is a box or more of each design drilled.
I recently picked up a like-new chip from the 70’s drilled on the top. My guess is it is from a slowly leaking box. Wanted to know if anybody has any first hand knowledge on the chip drilling practice beyond the manufactures keeping a drilled example for reorders.

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