TL;DR background: I'm green by most standards (~185 chips), with my only hardline being that I only collect $5 chips. However, I prefer limited/commemorative coming from Nevada, and I specialize in millenniums and openings. But really at this point I'm open to anything cool. But again, $5 only.

Last weekend I went to Reno with my father, focusing on picking up chips for my collection. Great success. I ended up with 37 new chips and I wanted to briefly summarize this trip for the benefit of all.

I posted here before the trip about my plans to basically head up to the cage and ask for anything unique. If they had something, I would buy it and tip the cashier. I also have my collection well-documented in Google Drive, which is available on my phone. So I'd also pick up anything unique plus any 'standard' chips that had been upgraded by the house since I'd last been there.

Going up to the cage in most places, I had to kind of gauge which employee might be most interested in helping me, although sometimes I had no choice. Surprisingly, everyone was open to the request of looking for unique chips; I guess it's not something that's common. The most common theme was "Oh, no, we don't do that"...And I was OK with that answer; it showed they knew what I was looking for, and weren't going to waste my time.

But at a couple places - Cal Neva, Atlantis, Harrah's, for example - the employee was all about it, much to my surprise. They pulled out stack after stack, looking for anything out of place, resulting in chips that were up to 9 years old. The guy at Harrah's even made several trips to the back to bring me some decommissioned stuff. I tried to tip these people whenever possible.

A trick I picked up on was to walk by the table games, especially Craps...It's easy to scan a stack of chips and see if there is anything irregular, just by looking at the borders/sides of the chip stacks .

A suggestion from some people on here was to also check out coin shops, antique shops, and pawn shops. We definitely did this, taking our time walking down Virginia Street to hit up every casino/shop possible. Some pawn shops had nothing but were willing to point to others that did; I guess the rarest thing I found was a chip from the Mapes...according to Wikipedia, the first high-rise casino west of the Mississippi after WW2. Also a pretty old Vegas Sahara chip. Coin shops were hit or miss; some weren't even open on a Saturday. Met Dennis (who goes by dndcollectibles58 on ebay) in one, who carried a pistol on his belt and seemed knowledgeable. Had a nice chat with him and bought some funky ones. We only found one antique shop, with a booth run by some person/group known as "10-96 Collectibles", I think (I lost their business card), but I picked up a funky chip from them too.

All in all, we had a blast, and significantly increased my collection; hope you enjoyed hearing about it. I snagged a couple chips with the explicit purpose of trading: here's that thread

http://www.thechipboard.com/index.cgi/page/1/md/read/id/1278499/sbj/chips-for-trade/

Here's a list of what I picked up this weekend. I'm not particularly open to trading anything here, but I'd listen, and also want to show off how successful the trip was:

Name - Location - Type - Still exists - MOGH ID

Barbary Coast Las Vegas Regular Closed 2005, became Bill's 2007 CG039909
Grad Sierra Resort Reno Regular Yes, on 11/8/13 CG065617
El Dorado Reno Regular Yes, on 11/8/13 CG064246
Bootown Verdi Regular Yes, on 11/8/13 CG073435
Cal Neva Reno Regular Yes, on 11/8/13 CG065253
Peppermill Reno Regular Yes, on 11/8/13 CG065254
Harrah's Reno Regular Yes, on 11/8/13 CG065005
Sahara Las Vegas Regular MOGH says from 1960s Closed to become SLS 5/6/11 CG064810
John Ascuaga's Nugget Sparks Regular Yes, on 11/8/13 CG067994
Mapes Reno Regular MOGH says from 1948 Closed 12/17/82 CG027732
Siena Reo Regular Yes, on 11/8/13 CG036418
Sahara Lake Tahoe MOGH says from 19702 Became Del Webb's High Sierra in 1983, Horizon in 2005 CG041976
Rail City Sparks Regular Yes, on 11/8/13 CG063702
Harrah's Reno Occasion Hot August Nights 2004 Yes, on 11/8/13 CG065135
Harrah's Reno Occasion Street Vibrations 2011 Yes, on 11/8/13 ?
Harrah's Reno Occasion Street Vibrations 2013 Yes, on 11/8/13 ?
Harrah's Reno Occasion 2001 Year of the Snake / Lunar Year 4600 Yes, on 11/8/13 CG091960
Harrah's Reno Occasion 2006 Year of the Dog Yes, on 11/8/13 ?
Harrah's Reno Occasion 2013 Chinese New Year Sake Yes, on 11/8/13 CG100203
Harrah's Reno Occasion Reno Air Races 2007 Yes, on 11/8/13 CG055392
Harrah's Reno Occasion Reno Air Races 1997, B-29 Bomber Yes, on 11/8/13 CG055305
Atlantis Reno Occasion 2009 Cruise of Champions 1500 Yes, on 11/8/13 CG085725
Atlantis Reno Occasion 2006 Hot August Nights 20th Anniversary 1500 Yes, on 11/8/13 CG085724
Atlantis Reno Occasion 2007 Hot August Nights/Cruise of Champions 1500 Yes, on 11/8/13 ?
Atlantis Reno Occasion 2010 Hot August Nights/Cruise of Champions 1500 Yes, on 11/8/13 CG068896
Atlantis Reno Occasion 2005 Hot August Nights/Cruise of Champions 1500 Yes, on 11/8/13 CG068894
Atlantis Reno Occasion 2008 Street Vibratios 1000 Yes, on 11/8/13 CG085728
John Ascuaga's Nugget Sparks Occasion Hot August Nights 2007 Yes, on 11/8/13 CG095482
Silver Club Sparks Occasion 2005 Hot August Nights Yes, on 11/8/13 CG066264
Silver Club Sparks Occasion Millennium 2000 Yes, on 11/8/13 CG069549
Silver Club Sparks Occasion Millennium/Ironing Out the Y2K Bug Yes, on 11/8/13 CG069547
Silver Club Sparks Anniversary 3rd Anniversary, 1992 Yes, on 11/8/13 CG058098
Cal Neva Reno Occasion 2006 Street Vibrations Yes, on 11/8/13 CG087209
Cal Neva Reno Occasion 2004 Street Vibratios Yes, on 11/8/13 ?
Fitzgeralds Reno Occasion 1992 St. Patrick's Day Closed 11/08.Became "CommRom", non-gaming hotel. 2013, became "Whitey Peak Hotel", non-gaming hotel CG096845
Peppermill Reno Occasion Nevada State Poker Champioship $3 CHIP FOR TRADE CG056581
Harrah's Reno Anniversary 60th anniversary Yes on 5/2/2013 CG057841