Collectors,

This hobby was built by collectors before there was a club. Collectors who scoured through every inch of Nevada looking for chips in small town bars that might have once had a blackjack table going on the weekends or in antique shops or wherever they could think they might find something. They did the legwork, not to make money, but because they were devoted to their hobby and the thrill of the hunt. And these collectors gathered together once in a while and traded. They looked through each others duplicates and made a pile of the chips they wanted and if the piles were equal, a trade was made. This was before The Chip Rack when chips had no value. It was trading my pile of chips for your pile. The start of the CCGTCC was when these traders wanted to form a club so that they could trade more often. The founder of the CCGTCC, Archie Black, is a collector. I see him in the trade sessions every year. He is a collector who believes in the hobby and has donated so much to it. Including writing two catalogs about the chips he collects from Atlantic City and Puerto Rico. Both of the catalogs are in my library. And there are many other collectors like Archie who share their passion for the hobby by organizing clubs, writing catalogs, publishing research articles in the Club magazine and delivering seminars at the convention. This hobby and this club were built by and for collectors. And one of the fundamental activities for collectors is to trade. Since my first convention, 1998 at the Orleans, I have been to every convention since and I always bring a box of duplicates with me to trade. That is where I get the time to spend with friends that I can only see, face to face, once every year. And, perhaps, that is more important to me than picking up a few new chips for my collection.

The CCA announced that they will only hold one trading session at the convention this year. If that happens, I will personally make sure that there are additional trade sessions.