I've been fortunate to call the greater Central City & Black Area my home for close to 27 years. I've been collecting pretty much the entire time. As dedicated as I am things still slip by me. I was recently contacted via Facebook by a longtime friend who is now working at the Lodge Casino. She alerted me that someone had cashed in a rack of older Lodge chips, "awesome" my reply, "thanks for thinking of me". Fast forward to today as I was bumming around this afternoon and passed through the Lodge and what-y-know I ran into my old friend. After a quick catch up she asked if I wanted to look at those chips before they get sent off to destruction. "Of course," I said, "I'd love too but I probably have them all already". Going through the ONE and only rack, mostly the LEs, I said yup, uhm, a hum, yup, got it, and then quickly noticed a different looking house 5 w 4 lt. blue edge spots. I laid the fiver down next to the original house 5s I'd always recognized and sure enough it was obvious with the trees on top of the logo vs. the trees under the logo like the old chips!! Grabbing my handy dandy cellphone, I quickly pulled up the guide and sure enough the chip was not listed. The two cashiers looked in bewilderment as I scrolled through the guide, showing them every chip the had casino made or so I thought. They also were amazed that such a website existed!! My excitement led to my next question, "do you have any 25's"? Sure enough, I found one 25 in good but used condition as well as two fivers. These have the GameOn impressions so I'm guessing they were made within the last 5 to 10 years and with them being somewhat similar to the original I guess collectors overlooked them with me being the obvious collector!! I've had similar experiences in the past, "that new find feeling" but all these years later it is in fact, still exciting and shows that stuff is still out there. Will these chips be considered scarce? I think so! Kinda made my day!!
Eric
The "new" find on the top, the original on the bottom.