Roy Kline got this one at an antique fair in Cincinnati. He put it on the BB as a trader. I was lucky enough to see it 1st. Roy only collects odd and strange chips. I struggled to find something he would accept. I now have 131 Indiana illegal chips. I played in several southern Indiana crap games and a number poker games back in the 1960's

No Club name aggravates me! 5,000 chips, should turn out to be a good story. Roy found the article from the Zionsville public library saying the club sat on 3 Indiana county lines but no Club name. We have seen a couple different illegals straddling 2 county lines but this is the 1st one on 3. Roy also found the article naming Farb's wife as a star of the Ziegfeld Follies. Ed Hertel found the raid article for "The Farm." I wasn't sure it was the same place as they were quoting different City names. As it turns out The Farm rivaled The Lookout House and Beverly Hills in N KY. I was unaware Indiana had any "Carpet Joints."

Enough of that: Time to call in "The Man."

Enter our "Friend Of The Hobby."

Here’s some stuff on the LF T-mold. Found a club name and a few tidbits on the Farbs (one tidbit includes a guy from Ft. Thomas, KY).

LF T-mold

The chips were delivered in 1949 to Louis Laskey Farb at Zionsville, Indiana. Farb was brought to Indianapolis as a baby by his Russian immigrant parents in 1892. In the 1890’s Farb’s dad Sam sold sandwiches out of a basket on a street near the Indianapolis police station. One day an African-American woman approached him and asked if he would sign the bond for the release of her son who had just been arrested. This incident launched the Farb’s into the bail bond business which they ran for several decades. Laskey’s brother Al was running the business when interviewed by the Wall Street Journal in 1971:

In addition to being bondsmen, many of Sam Farb’s seven sons boxed in their youth, promoted boxing when older, operated saloons, bootlegged liquor, ran gambling rooms and bookmaking operations. Laskey Farb was involved with all of the above, participating in gambling activities in the Indianapolis area from the 1910’s until his death there in 1962.

This 1930 snip from an Indianapolis newspaper suggests that the Farbs were the Indianapolis version of Lloyds of London:

Jones, a professional lawyer and amateur golfer, won all four majors in 1930 (Jones is the only golfer to have won the “Grand-Slam” in one calendar year).

Laskey apparently hung out with some big-time gamblers....

In October 1931 the St. Louis Cardinals hosted the Philadelphia Athletics for games 6 and 7 of the World Series. Laskey Farb visited St. Louis for the event with another Indianapolis gambler named Isidore Silverman--a man Sports Illustrated described in 1956 as the “biggest baseball bettor in history.” While at the Statler Hotel in St. Louis Farb, Silverman and a guy from Ft. Thomas, Kentucky named Frank Moore were robbed of several thousand dollars at gunpoint . Laskey’s brother Al had this to say about Moore at the time:

My note: Jim Linduff ran Moore's name thru some KY databases but found nothing. He flew under the radar as far as we could tell. Will probably take a visit to the library to get more on him.

My note: We've seen gambling and baseball stars intermingled in a couple other "IOTD" stories.

One more Farb tidbit before moving on to the LF T-mold chips. Laskey Farb had an uncle in New York City name Isidore. In September 1934 Isidore’s son Harry visited his cousins in Indianapolis. The day Harry returned to NYC from Indianapolis he was shot dead “in the gang manner.”

(Sept.20th 1934)

When the LF T-mold chips were ordered in 1949 Laskey Farb was running a place northwest of Indianapolis called the “Farm Club.” Like the article you sent says, the club was located in Zionsville in a house which sat on a piece of property at the junction of Marion, Boone and Hendricks Counties.

(the article you sent can also be found at this site devoted to Midwest illegal gambling: http://www.freewebs.com/midwestillegals/ )

Below are some current pics of the property.

Entrance drive to the property off Kissel Road; the article you sent says the property was surrounded by a chain link fence; a chain link fence is visible in the photo—article forgot to mention that the fence is topped with barbed wire...

Aerial view; blue line shows property boundary (about 14 acres); red arrow shows the location of the camera in the photo above:

a little closer view, showing the county boundary lines; some of the structures do appear to be in two separate counties:

My note: Not sure if its in 3 counties like the library says or just 2, That back building could be extending into Hendricks county.

another view; the structures which sat on the county lines were constructed in 1940 and 1948:

one more:

Since the 1970’s the property has been the site of the Colonial Village Nursery & Day Care Center.

Two different counties? It’s all the same to the Indiana State Police:

(July 23rd 1952)

—(10,000 poker chips confiscated; the 5,000 in Farb’s 1949 LF T-mold order probably among them)

My note: Where are the other 9,999 chips and what was on the other 5,000 chips not on the Taylor order?

Several days later....
Farb’s attorney--his brother Max--turns the tables on what is illegal:

(August 5th 1952)

One more item. Lasky Farb's wife a star in the Ziegfeld Follies killed in a car crash. Others in the car crash looks like a "Who's Who" in Indianapolis area.

It appears the Farb's were well connected and took large action from the mid west to New York City. My guess is they were connected to the New York crime families. The model for the mid west "Carpet Joints" can be traced back to the first one, the Cleveland syndicate's Arrowhead Inn in Branch Hill, Ohio, circa 1930's. If you are new to the "Illegal Of The Day" series, you can read about the Arrowhead Inn here in a 6 part article told to me by my dear friend Danny Nason. Rest easy "Friend."

http://www.marlowcasinochips.com/links/genetrimble/genetrimble.htm

Scroll down to see over 200 stories about the "Era Of The Illegals."

The "Era Of The Illegals" 1930's-1961 has been and will continue to be an amazing story. They may have been one of the larger employers in the USA for that 30 year period. Thousands earned their living staffing them in all 50 states and moved on to turn Las Vegas into what it is today. If you look hard you can find their "footprints" all over the Las Vegas strip and downtown from the Four Queens to the Hacienda.

I suggest all new chip collectors take a hard look at the illegals and join us in our quest for the history of "Our" chips. Cheap chips and history.

Thank you "Friend," Roy, Jim, and Ed.