In this era of the internet, much of the traffic in illegal gambling collectibles is on-line. But there is still the occasional antique store/estate sale find—such as a couple days ago when I wandered into a little antique shop on Chicago’s Northwest Side. In one drawer I found the chip shown below—yellow in color, a chain mold manufactured by Hunt and Co., and stamped HF on the front and back with no denomination—on a card with a partial identification:

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Even though there is a name and a location (Pullman) on the card, I refer to it (initially) as only partly identified because I think that the late Gene Trimble and the other serious researchers in this field would never have accepted this small amount of information as conclusive. But it surely is a good place to start.

The Pullman neighborhood is on Chicago’s far South Side. It began in 1880 as a planned industrial community, founded by railroad car manufacturer and industrial giant George Pullman around his famous Pullman works. Pullman dreamed of a model town, near his factory, where his workers would live. Although this experiment began well, it went awry during the major economic contraction in the 1890s. The show piece of Pullman was the magnificent Hotel Florence, which George Pullman named after his daughter. The hotel opened in 1881 and its guests over the years included many famous individuals, such as Prince Henry of Germany.

Having visited Pullman and gone into the old Hotel Florence only a few years ago, I was immediately intrigued and bought the chip. A check of the on-line records at Preserving Gaming History indicates that 800 such chips in red and 400 in yellow were ordered in 1933 by an “H. Fisher” who gave his address as 10951 S. Park Avenue on the South Side of Chicago. This location is not far from the Pullman section of town and the Hotel Florence, whose street address was 11111 S. Forestville Avenue. The book Chicago’s Historic Pullman District (Arcadia Publishing, 1998) indicates that the hotel was owned and operated for six decades first by William Fischer, Sr. (from 1910 to 1947) and then by William Fischer, Jr. (from 1947 to 1970). The obituary in 1947 of William Fischer, Sr. in the Chicago Tribune and census and other records indicate that he had a son, William R. Fischer, who ran the hotel after his death.

The similarity between the last names Fischer and Fisher is surely no coincidence. This suggested a check of the 1930 census records, which indicates that a William R. Fischer lived at the time in the apartment building at 10951 S Park Ave. with his wife. He listed his occupation as hotel clerk. This is conclusive evidence that the Fischer family bought the chips, and that they were most likely used at the Hotel Florence, otherwise why not have them stamped with your personal initials WF?

Fischer Jr. most likely ordered them giving Fisher as his last name because the mailman would have delivered a package addressed to Fisher at 10951 S. Park Avenue to him. He also probably used the first initial H to coincide with the HF stamp on the chips—and thus deflect attention from the Hotel Florence in the chip order.

What of the chip order? Twelve hundred chips in only two colors with no denominations on them—and there are no further, related chip orders in the Hunt and Co. records-- hardly indicates that a large-scale gambling operation was running at the Hotel Florence. Such a thing is also a bit inconsistent with its exclusive nature. These chips could, however, have been used in a reasonable sized poker game run by the hotel as a service to its high-end clientele and which the owner, and perhaps some trusted locals, sat in on to provide a “quorum.” For example, the red chips could have been designated as worth $1 and the yellow chips as worth $5. If the game had a $1 ante and a $5 maximum raise, this chip set would have been more than enough to facilitate a game of five card draw or five/seven card stud with multiple players.

What is an interesting piece of historical coincidence is that the parents of famous Chicago Prohibition agent Eliot Ness lived in the same building as William R. Fischer in 1930. Eliot Ness himself was fond of poker, playing in a regular game around that time with famous Chicago reporter Herman Kogan, according to his son Rick Kogan, himself a renowned Chicago journalist. Perhaps Ness or his father Peter, who was a successful baker, played at the Hotel Florence. Eliot Ness was, in fact, assigned to the Chicago office of the Prohibition Bureau until September 1933 so he was in the city at the time of the chip order.