Just back from a 3 week trip to Australia and New Zealand with good friend and fellow chip collector Matt Elliott and am still very much playing catchup.

Concerning information on Richard Staeffler's California guide as posted on my web pages, he did NOT provide me with information as to his sources to were he acquired the information that is posted there. Just the scans and the basic documents, so I do not know where the dates listed came from....

As to the name(s) of the clubs and the information that is on the chip, I can provide you with the following information as follows:

Jerry F. Schimmel's guide to Chinese-American Tokens from the Pacific Coast shows a single green hub chip that matches the scan as you show in your post with a translation of Yun Dung (or Tung) = Far East as does the book, Read and Write Chinese by Rita Mei-Wah Choy.

From my understanding, the name of the club and what was inscribed on the chip was often different in so much as the operations were not legal to start with, and this is often true with chips of this ilk even when NOT Chinese.

Mr. Schimmel goes on to add the following information in his book which I am quoting here:

"Yun Tung: E: Far East or Oriental; P: Yuan Dong, Y: Yuhn Dung (my notes: The "E" , "P" and "Y" here stand for the three (3) different types of Chinese languages used and thus the different spellings - you can take your pick). Notes on (chip) holder "Far east Club, Bakersfield. Made by Mason & Co., Chicago, Aug 7, 1941 and delivered to M. Chan, 380 Vernon Street, Oakland California." The Characters for Yun Tung are commonly used all over."

It is highly likely that the date(s) listed on Richard's guide came from this source.

Hope this helps.

John K. Kallman
LM112-112

John