Sometime before I started the “Illegal Of The day” posts I did a post showing the connections between the Dallas Mafia/James Worsham/Maurice Hotel/Benny Binion/ and a chip with WandB on it. The WandB chip is dated 1940. Part of that post will follow at the end of this one.

I guess you can call the first part of this post a “Prequel.”

Enough of that:

Texas:

A few months ago we found the red and yellow CW in a Horseshoe chips on ebay. I already had the record card from back when several of us were getting cards and pooling them. I did not have the chips.
I don’t do ebay so I had Mike Vuolo buy us both one of each color red and yellow. When we got them there were 2 different fonts of the yellow. Huh???? We scrambled and had 2 more yellow, I of each font sent to us.

My notes:

Appears to have been an earlier order in 1936, not on this card.
Scans below clearly show there was a new die made for the 1939 order. This is not unusual as distributors misplace or lose dies. I have had it happen at Paulson. Almost impossible to make 2nd die, 100% same as the 1st one. Small font 1937 because of the small font die cast on the record card, large font and new die for the 1939 order.

W =Worsham. C =Read on.

I sent my notes to a friend as I knew he would want them if he did not have them.
Note and scan from the friend that bought the chips a little Earlier than we did:
DAMN!!! He got a blue one from the same seller!!! That sucks!!!

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I have both versions of the yellow. I have one that I think is the light-blue. If the chip below is light-blue, then the large "C" version of the chip is from the 1939 order (light-blue, vermillion, yellow) and the small "C" version of the yellow chip would be from 1937 (also small "C" on the order card stamp).
I think the images below are the light-blue, vermillion, yellow from 1939 and the yellow from 1937.
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My note: We agreed. IMO this means there is a red and blue out there with the small font. Anyone have them to trade? I need 3. Both blues, and red small font,

Note: From a “Friend of the Hobby.” Thank you once again.

The last order of CW chips was bought 1 year before the Maurice Hotel opened.

Not sure if the CW chips were used at the Maurice Hotel.

The Maurice was a brand-new hotel which opened just before Worsham ordered the WandB chips in Dec.1940. I know chips can migrate with an operator, but I would think he would have used his new WandB chips at the new Maurice Hotel set-up. (maybe the CW chips continued to be used at the address they were sent to originally?).

The CW chips were sent to an address in an old south Dallas neighborhood called Oak Cliff. At the time of the 1936-37 orders the address was a drug store operated by a guy named Coffin; in 1939 the place was a five & dime store operated by a guy named Cannon (I guess either or neither could be the"C" on the chips.

Cannon was a pallbearer at Worsham's funeral in 1966).

Coffin, a pharmacist, was fined for operating a gambling device at the store in 1938 (a marble board) and fined the same year for dispensing medicinal whiskey without a prescription. (my note: what is medicinal whiskey in 1938?)

My note: C=both Coffin and Cannon are good candidates.

Here's a current view of the building which housed the CW chips delivery address. It's an L-shaped building which sits on the corner of West Davis and Edgefield.

The delivery address, 1324 West Davis, was located on the corner which straddles both streets. In the 1939 Dallas city directory, Worsham is listed at the address 506 1/2 Edgefield--which puts him on the second floor, above the delivery address. The second floor of an Oak Cliff drugstore was raided in 1937 and six gamblers were arrested--not sure if this was the same drugstore. (my note: I bet it was!)

Now the Sequel:

Worsham ties himself to the Dallas Mafia.

Stay tuned for “Part 3” of an ever developing saga. Benny Binion/Herbert “The Cat” Noble and “The Dallas Mafia Wars”