Having started with the lowly quarter from The Casino, today we progress up the denomination scale to one of the two $1 chips (at least that I have, but I believe that were produced) for the Bicentennial, the $1 Holiday Casino in Vegas:

For me at least part (and sometimes dare I say most?) of the fun of going after a particular chip (or particular type of chip, such as Bicentennials) is the "thrill of the hunt". I have found in my collecting that the wanting is almost as much fun as the having, since after I have finally obtained that elusive chip, put it in an airtite, have it safely in my display, and gaze at it with a certain sense of satisfaction, the very next thought in my mind is "okay, what's my next one".

Since I'm generally a patriotic sort of guy, when I first started collecting chips I gravitated towards the Bicentennials--- many of them are relatively easy to obtain; can be had for a reasonable price; and are attractive in their own right. Later, as the chip collecting sickness grows and begins to take over your higher reasoning abilities, you start looking for ways to make it more difficult on yourself-- you decide you want even the chips that aren't that easy to obtain; you start to become willing to shell out unreasonable (at least of those who don't have the sickness, so would never understand) amounts of money to get them; or you want a nicer condition of the chips you already own.

One thing I realized early on as this chip collecting sickness came upon me was my own individual susceptibility to that last temptation-- the tendency to want to upgrade condition on chips you already own. As such I generally limit myself to collecting chips that are in SU or better condition the first time I obtain an example (flat heresy to some collectors I know, since that usually means the given chip was probably used very little-- if at all--in the original purpose for which it was fabricated. I have also been known to clean chips in my collection as well, which can also be the subject of much discussion and debate).

Some chips (especially among the Bicentennials, since arguably they were made for collecting, but were made in a time that not a lot of people collected chips) are what are known as "condition rarities"-- chips that are relatively common, but are much harder to obtain in top condition (given the overall number of surviving examples), due to the fact that most of them remained on the tables, sometimes for years, living out their lives as the little bits of plasticized clay they were meant to be. The Holiday Casino $1 is thought to be one of them-- which made my fleeting sense of satisfaction when I finally added it to my collection 0.37% more fulfilling.

Of course I immediately asked myself, "Okay, what's my next one?"

Brent J. Jensen
R-8007
orbis non sufficit