Mike Vuolo gets the credit for this “Illegal Of The Day’ post.

First a little history about the records of The Jones Brothers, New Orleans. I have been collecting the old manufactures records ever since I found out they existed. In my opinion, without the history we have nothing but little pieces of clay.

One morning a number of years ago I received a package from Allan Meyers who along with Michael Knapp and Ernie Wheelden were the authors of The Chip Rack at that time. I opened the scanned below cover letter and became very excited. Special thanks to K M W publishing and Al Kleindienst.

Previously I had obtained copies of the Taylor, Hunt, HC Edwards, and some of the EM O’Neil records. A few years later along came David Spragg and told me the records belonged to the hobby and should be available to all collectors on the internet. He went to a lot of trouble to get them ready for uploading. The short version is http://www.preservinggaminghistory.com/ was born. If you collect the old chips, this site can be a lot of help to you and should be book marked. A couple years later we donated the domain name and the site to The Museum Of Gaming History, The MOGH. Last year I donated my copies of the old records to the club library.

In the above letter Allan Meyers credits Al Kleindienest for the records. Al is the authority on Louisiana illegal chips. His book Delta Nights is a must if you collect deep south illegals.

Enough of the short version:

Louisiana:

A couple days ago, I received an email from Mike Vuolo asking if I needed the JF LgSq $50 chip. I already had it from David Spragg back in 2005, but I had no history on it.

Mike Vuolo has a couple to sell if you need the JF chip.

Jacob Lauff
Jefferson Parish, LA
Chips delivered in 1963-64

Mike sent off an email to Al Kleindienst.
“I sent it off to Al Kleindienst author of Delta Nights and this is what he responded to me.”

Hi Mike, thanks for the email. Let me tell you about Jacob Lauff, many years ago I ran into Jacob and went to his House. He gave me some chips and then wanted to know if I was interested in a box he had which he showed me. When I find the picture of it I'll send it to you- its pretty neat. What he did was to be a visiting casino he would go to large companies who would let their employees off an hour for lunch and set up his gambling box, open it up which unfolded into a green table cloth like a gambling table-and he was set up for business. He did this for many years, I believe he also at one time worked at some of
the gambling places but used the JF Chips when doing his own thing. I had never heard of anyone doing this. Hope this helps, Al

My note: Well, I have heard of it before. Jacob was a hustler. He hustled a buck wherever he could find someone to hustle. I knew many hustlers back in the 1960’s, they did whatever they had to do, some more so than others. I considered myself a hustler from 1961 through 1980 when I moved my family to Las Vegas and got my first real job. I hustled poker, gin, pool, dice games, oil wells, race tracks, and a few other things. Lived the high life and thoroughly enjoyed it.

In fact, I hate to admit it, but I was hustled one time.
Good story for another day.
I made a life altering decision in 1980 and never regretted it.