Tomorrow's Illegal of the Day is the first of two concerning the chips formally known as coming from the Eastside Club in Biloxi, Mississippi.

When I originally bought these chips, decades ago, I was given the attribution of Biloxi and accepted it as good. After all, the Jones mold LGSQUR was common along the Gulf coast and to me (although one spelled the name with two words and the other with one) there was nothing to immediately flag these as suspect. You also have to remember that it was different time back then. In order to get the records for a chip, you had to make a photocopy of the chip, mail it and $5 off in an actual stamped letter (remember doing that?) and wait 4-6 weeks for a reply. Twenty-years-ago-Ed was not patient and didn't have the resources to throw around $5 bills at every chip which already had an ID. And so these chips continued to be attributed to Biloxi without question. Until...

After the Illegal Seminar this year, Tom Henderson, a Mississippi illegal collector and researcher, introduced himself to me and asked where that attribution came from. I thought for a moment and said, "I have no idea." I assumed the Jones mold chip came from the online Jones records, but a quick look showed that this chip was missing. Ok, so I looked through my file of hundeds of Mason records I'd pulled over the years - nothing.

Tom went on to explain that he had been researching Mississippi casinos for some time and had not found a club in Biloxi named the "Eastside" (seems like someone should have done that in the last 20 years) and that he had found the Jones mold chips in central Mississippi at an estate sale of a known Rankin County gambler. (If, like me, you're not familiar with Rankin County's Gold Coat then read tomorrow's IOTD for a rundown.) He also said in all his years he had never run across the hub mold "Eastside" in Mississippi.

Certainly I wasn't THAT far off. Maybe, just maybe the city is wrong, but surely these chips belong together, right? Not even close. With even a limited search it was easily found that this Rankin County gambler did indeed have an East Side Club. That explains one of the chips. However, the Mason hub mold chip was the real shocker. Not only was it not Biloxi, it wasn't even Mississippi. The "Eastside" hub mold (and rcthrt) chips belong right in the middle of the Binion Dallas gambling wars! Whoa! I didn't see that coming.

So tomorrow's post will take the LGSQUR and remove them from the Gulf coast and move them up into Mississippi's "Gold Coast".

Hopefully I can write up the HUB mold and get that submitted for next week.

We started with five Biloxi chips and ended up with none. Thanks Tom for smacking me over the head and making me take a second look. It just goes to show you, do your research and question everything!