Two weeks ago I posted that there had been 30 "Illegal Of The Day" posts from Illinois. I forgot to add the 4 Chicago IOTD posts. This is actually the 35th Illinois IOTD post.

The 2 GD chain molds arrived from Weston Charles a couple weeks ago along with an email where he had talked to Gus Dandelles's son.

Geez, Weston is getting more mention in IOTD posts than I am. Actually I am thrilled someone else is out there trying to get info on our chips. I hope others would join in and put some history to our chips.

Enough of that:
Illinois:

Hunt & Company record from Preserving Gaming History web site.

G.D.
1-11-32
Gus Dandelles
Dandelles Bill Hall
165 N Schuyler Ave
Kankakee, Ill

200 Red
200 White
200 Blue
400 Yellow

I was able to locate and talk to Gus's son Harry, who still lives in Kankakee.
He told me he was 88 years old. He remembered that his Father owned the building where the chips were delivered. He mentioned that he recalled the building had three storefronts and his father had a lounge in one. He would eventually put in a bowling alley as well. He thought that the building had been torn down.

Harry said his son had some old club chips from the family and that if he could locate them he would send them to me. ;) we shall see on that one. I'm going to call him back early next week to check on his progress. He was tickled that anyone would have interest in his father.

I'll keep you guys in the loop if I can get any more information or chips.

My note: I am always a little leery about matching chain mold chips to the Hunt and Company records as there are no actual die stamps on the records like Mason and Taylor records. They are hand written, sometimes the salesmen tried to hand write to match the die, sometimes not. In this case it was a "not."

My reply to Weston:
Hopefully Gus's son will find matching chips in his son's stash.

Enter our "Friend Of The Hobby." A little back up never hurt a history lesson.

The card says “Dandelles Bill Hal”, an abbreviation for Dandelles Billiard Hall which was located at the delivery address at the time.

1933 city directory--

map from 1930, shows a 2 story building with 3 storefronts (like the son said); rear of building has “bowling & billiards” (parking lot today)--

Gus was born Constantinos Dandelles in 1883 at a town called Kirk-Kilisse in what is today Turkey, not far from its border with Greece and Bulgaria (lot of Greeks there at the time like Gus, but a third as many Muslims). Gus left his hometown and went to Piraeus, Greece near Athens and then on to Chicago in 1905 at age 22. By the 1910’s he was in Kankakee running a billiard hall. Gus ran billiard halls, bowling alleys and amusement companies in Kankakee until his death there in 1953 at age 70.

Two pictures from Weston.
Schuyler Ave looking north from Station St at dusk_ 1967

Schuyler Ave, looking southwest toward Court Street_1952

My note: I remember when Sear's stores were downtown on the main streets of most small cities. Sometimes right next to a Montgomery Ward's store and one of the 10¢ stores. No huge shopping malls in those days. This picture resembles Madison Ave in Covington, KY during my teenage years. I could put a name, model, and year made to every car in those years. Today, they all look alike to me. Yesterday I came out of Arizona Charlie's. There was 6 grey cars in the row I parked in. I had to look for the dent in the bumper to find my car. Proof that priorities change through the years.

More from Weston:
Got two chips and a letter in the mail today from Harry Dandelles, indeed... They are the other 2 colors from the original order.
I believe he has a box or so of each color. I'm going to work on getting some more chips and maybe a pic of the lounge. see attached.

He also mentioned that there was 4 lanes upstairs where the women bowled and an 8 lane basement where the gents bowled.

My note: I bet the civil rights people would be all over Gus for the upstairs/downstairs rule in today's world.

Talk to you later.

My note: Looks to me like my concerns have proven to be false. No doubt they match the Hunt records and all 4 colors accounted for..

Weston found this picture on the internet. The pic of the guys in chairs is at the airport, Harry is the guy holding the sign, coming home from a vets reunion.

Challenge to all illegal chip collectors.
Pick a chip. The records posted on Preserving Gaming History are a good starting point. Go to Google and take a shot. You never know what you will find.