Some days, I will be covering casinos that I don't have many collectibles from. Today is the first of those days.

In 1975, The Aruba Caribbean's casino changed its name from the Aruba Caribbean to the Arusino. Interesting to note is that there was a casino on Bonaire called the Bonasino which, I believe, started around the same time. They both used the same chips. Since I have so little from the Arusino, I don't know if had other equipment in common. Some denominations of these chips ($5, $25 and possibly $100 chips were used also fairly recently at another Bonaire casino - the $1 chip remains more scarce).

The only collectible I have from the Arusino is a match barrel I got from Don Lueders. In the last year or so before Don left the Chip Board, he made sure to give me an opportunity to buy anything from the Caribbean that he had, including his match collection. I got a few matchbooks from Don. I always found Don a joy to trade with/buy from. I miss his presence on this board.

Jerry Birl, note the roulette wheel in the hole in the a at the end of the barrel. Also interesting to point out is that the telephone number has 4 digits. Aruba started by issuing 4 digit telephone numbers. I have matchbooks with 4, 5, 6 and 7 digit numbers. They still use 7 digit numbers today. When trying to research the dates of my matchbooks, I contacted the Aruba telephone company, several newspapers and the library to determine when Aruba began to use telephone numbers with the various numbers of digits. Apparently, there are no records which indicate when the numbers switched. I was able to learn that they began to use 7 digits in 2003, 6 in 1997 and that the 5 digit numbers go back at least as far as 1992.

Here is one scan I saved of a die from the Arusino Casino:

I encourage anyone who has any collectibles that I don't to go ahead and show them. I encourage even more anyone who has any collectible that I don't to offer to sell them to me.

Tomorrow, the Aruba Caribbean hotel changes owners.

Michael Siskin