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This is not a particularly hard chip to come by, although I really like the look of the chip and the colour combinations. I got this chip from Mike Spinetti-- in terms of volume of chips the largest single supplier of my collection, especially in the early days.
I remember the first time I met Mike-- it was in my first days of collecting (and a long time before I had any interest in something so extravagant as $20 chips 
). I had made his acquaintance via a few moderate purchases of the original Casino de Isthmus chips (you could still buy them directly from Paulson in those days, but since I was such small potatoes I could rarely get them to respond to my inquiries-- Mike had equivalent prices and much better customer service). I had considered collecting casino chips for a while as an interesting corollary of coin collecting, but had yet to make the plunge. Through a series of conversations Mike agreed to let me stop by his house when I was next in Vegas where he would hook me up with some $1s from the various Vegas casinos (like many new collectors, one of my first pursuits).
I remember I stopped by his house, and he took me down into his basement. I rummaged through some of his bins that he takes to chip shows, but eventually he took me into his safe, where there were literally rows and rows of shelves, all stacked to the top with boxes and boxes of chips from every casino whose name I could recall. I remember being in utter awe, and that was before I did the calculations later on the possible collector value of what I had seen. 
Anyway, he probably spent 45 minutes or so with me as I sorted and selected my various purchases, giving me not only a wealth of information on the hobby but great stories about classic Vegas as well. I probably didn't spend more than $100 or so, but came away with more than enough $1s to fill up all the available space on the walls of my game room, as well as lots of information, and having thoroughly enjoyed myself. In any case I went on my way-- though I would return to bug him several times more when ever I would come back into town.
Knowing what I know now, it is a little surprising to me that he would have spent so much time showing me, a virtual stranger and no one from whom he was going to make any material amount of money, his collection-- as well as sharing stories and responding to all of my questions. Of course, he's just such a genuinely nice and generous person, with such great memories and stories of classic Vegas, that it's really not so surprising after all-- just special. He's a prime example of the type of generous, friendly people that this hobby seems to have in abundance: one of the principal things that makes chip collecting great.
In any case, a couple of days later I had sent him an e-mail to thank him again for the chips and for letting me see his collection. He responded back with a warm welcome and with two website links-- www.thechipboard.com, and www.ccgtcc.com-- "just in case" I was interested in learning more about chip collecting.
And thus my journey began.
Brent J. Jensen
R-8007
orbis non sufficit
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