The SM chips were found at a Goodwill store in Colorado Springs, CO. Westen Charles got them from a 3rd party. The Red Top chip was found with them. We found nothing on the Red Top chip. I left it in the scan hoping one of you will have info on it.

The research was interesting and there was a huge email exchange on the SM ID with all members of the "Illegal Of The Day" team. I am posting some of it to relate what goes on with our research.

The Mason record on the SM chips came back as:
SM hub molds
S******* M******* his initials are SM. I am withholding his name.
S Harlan
Denver, CO
No date on Mason record card.

I talked to the S M on the record card. I can relate to him. Like me, he is a retired Las Vegas casino executive. He is 15 years older than me and came to Las Vegas in the early 1960's. He worked in many of the big name LV casinos. He was a little evasive with info and I understood why. He bought the chips from the Kansas City Card CO. The Mason CO owned it. Mason sold all their funny dice, and other rigged devises through KC Card CO . SM still has their catalog. He did own a BJ table. He lived on S Harlan 1955-1960. That info gives us a delivery date span on the SM chips.

After a lengthy email thread on this info. Westen pointed out the chips he got, most were very worn, looked older, and had a lot of usage. He then asked the question that got us to the real answer and to this "IOTD.".

Westen: "Did we check the Mason records for any other SM chip records?"

BINGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NEW RECORD SEARCH.
No Mason card for a Red Top chip.

SM - IN OVAL
(same font SM as ours but in oval)
Silver Moon Nite Club
Johnny Clint
Pueblo, CO
900 chips I940

On the"BACK" of that card:
1000 chips SM - NO OVAL (this is our chips) 1946

Reorder 1956 SM no oval 1000 chips returned undeliverable.
Redelivered to S******* M******* no date
S******* redelivered order is the card we have the original info from.
Had to be 1955-60 as that is when he lived on Harlan St.

The Silver Moon was still open 1955-60. Why was the 1956 order undeliverable? Did S******* M******* just buy an undeliverable order that just happened to have his initials on them? He may have gotten a good deal on the chips or it is possible Mason Co did not tell him they were actually made for someone else? Did he have an association with the Silver Moon? Doubtful. It is 113 miles from Denver to Pueblo. I do not have these answers. In the past we have seen a lot of other chip records with undeliverable chips sold to other buyers.

Enough of that:
Enter our "Friend Of The Hobby."

Found a few things on the SM hub—wish I had more. A person it might be worth contacting for more info is Chip DeLuca. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all proprietors of the Silver Moon. He’s 57 and resides in Pueblo. He used to work for the Pueblo County Sherriff’s Department but a few years ago opened a restaurant in downtown Pueblo which I guess is still open.

Chip DeLuca (personal info withheld)

My note: I called Chip. His listed number is no longer working. I called his mother, she is in her 80's. Chip is in the mountains. She will have him call me. She did tell me the Silver Moon burned down but did not remember the year.

Silver Moon

The Silver Moon was a popular and long running night club located just east of the Pueblo city limits in the township of Blende. When the club opened in the early 1930’s it was owned and operated by Italian immigrants Anthony DePalma and Frank Vence, both well known operators of roadhouse gambling speakeasies in the Pueblo area during prohibition. DePalma sold his interest in the club in 1934 and over the next several decades the Silver Moon was run by Vence and the family of his daughter Frances and her husband Charles DeLuca (also an Italian immigrant).

ad from 1938:

matchcover:

The Silver Moon was located on Highway 50, also known as Santa Fe Drive, just north of the intersection of Delta Street.
Here’s a current aerial showing the location, the structure which housed it long gone.

Street view looking across Highway 50 / Santa Fe Drive and down Delta Street--the structure on the right was the DeLuca family home; the structure to the left was for many years a liquor store run by the DeLuca’s (today it’s a marijuana dispensary: http://leafonthemesa.com/who-we-are).

The 1940 SM in oval hub order was sent to Johnny Clint at the Silver Moon. According to the 1939 Pueblo city directory, Clint and his wife Erna worked at the Silver Moon and also apparently resided on the premises:

In 1944 the Silver Moon made a Billboard Magazine list of Pueblo’s “leading cocktail lounges”

A lot of Italians settled in the Pueblo area and for many years in the mid-twentieth century Pueblo was the reputed home of Colorado’s Italian organized criminal “underworld.”
One of the reputed “bosses” during this time was James Colletti, a 1957 Appalachian attendee and Pueblo resident who for many years ran the Santa Fe Market on Santa Fe Drive,
located about a mile down the road from the Silver Moon. It has been said that the Silver Moon was a hangout for Pueblo area “wise guys” (all that being said, this is not
meant to suggest that the Italian-Americans who owned and operated the Silver Moon were members of any criminal organization).

My note: The Appalachian meeting in 1957 is well documented. It was a meeting of the bosses of most mafia families across the USA. New York state police raided it. 60 crime bosses were indicted. The raid confirmed to the world that the American Mafia existed contrary to J Edgar Hoover's refusal to acknowledge its existence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apalachin_Meeting

City directory listing from 1946, the year of our SM no oval hub delivery:

The Silver Moon was on the 1951 Taylor & Co. customer list made for the Kefauver Commission (couldn’t find any chip orders in the records though). I think the person transcribing the customer list record is trying to write “Frank Vence” on the second line:

My note: IMO this confirms Taylor was selling gambling supplies like cards, dice, tables. etc to the Silver Moon.

ad from 1961 announcing a 5 night stand by The Three Suns at the Silver Moon:

“Fever & Smoke” an album The Three Suns released that year can be listed to here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2lb8sqTqdk
(interesting, weird, funky lounge music covers of popular hits arraigned by Charles Albertine)

Final note: When Anthony De Palma left the Silver Moon in 1934, after 2 1/2 years, he began a long association with D&M Cigar in Pueblo.

Taylor chip record:

My note: I need the TDP chip. Cough it up if you have a trader.

This is "Illegal Of The Day" #288, closing in on 300.