A couple of weeks ago, I was looking through my eBay searches and I saw something that struck me. The lot was 3 chips, two Caribbean and one a Borland fake. The picture wasn't great and you could see some gunk or stains on two of the chips. The third chip, which had the most gunk looked a bit different to me. It was an Americana, Aruba $5 chip, the infused diecards mold chip. It was red, like the two I have, but the chip in the picture looked like it had white inserts. I have one with black inserts and one with pink inserts:

I didn't remember seeing one with any other color inserts. So, I checked the chip guide. No other colors. So, I wrote the seller and asked about the insert colors, and I asked about the gunk. He said it looked white to him and he thought the gunk would wash off. I decided to take a chance and made a bid. I made a decent sized bid, just in case. The other chips, the poor picture and the gunk, I guess, dissuaded other bidders. The chip was also in Canada, and the high shipping must have kept other bids away as well. I guess John Genualdi didn't see it, as well (Caribbean collectors know what I mean). Whatever happened, I got the chips at the minimum bid. After a small delay - the seller informed me he would not get the chips out right away due to a family health issue - the chips showed up. The Borland had a big stain on the other side, the Caribbean snapper was fine, and the Americana had a stain, but not horrible (scan below shows the much better side). Anyway, I don't think I will find one in better condition any time soon. And the inserts are white as can be:

So, I got something new, unknown. Now comes the strange part. This means we have three red five dollar chips from the Americana, each differing only in the insert color. That changes my opinion of these chips. In Aruba, there are a number of cases where casinos had two chips of the same denomination. Sometimes, one was the rack chip and the other was a "credit chip," used for those who were playing on a line of credit:

In one case, one chip was used for Caribbean Stud and the other for all other table games (no idea why):

In one case, there are three, one for credit and, well, I'm not sure about the other two:

Here, there is no clear cut "credit chip." So, why three? Maybe it was like they had in Curacao, where they had denominated chips for the roulette tables. Maybe. I'm doubtful we will ever know, but it is interesting. What do you think?

In any case, I'm glad I got lucky and added a new chip to my collection and a new chip to the know universe of Aruba chips. Sometimes it all just works out.

Michael Siskin