Hi David, and chip lovers,

I saw your discussion here, and as the prior long-time owner and consignor of this JFK Poker Chip set to Heritage Auctions, I thought I would weigh in on this, as there seems to be a lot of misinformation getting spun here, and unfair and unkind accusations against Heritage Auctions, which is indeed a very reputable auction house, that I have respect for, and have a good relationship with.

Since we all are gambling historians here, and all enjoy a good chip detective story, in the interest of unraveling this mystery further in search of the truth, lets go forward together, with good intentions, and no hard feelings, and see where that leads. Sometimes a story that seems too good to be true, might actually be true. I have seen no evidence otherwise other than what David has presented to me, and again here publicly on his forum. NOTE: I hope in our sincere effort towards moving forward on this with no hard feelings and this thread will be kept alive and not censored, in which case I will resurrect it on another forum where it can carry on to it’s objective conclusion.

I am the consignor of the JFK chip set to Heritage Auctions, and it is true I contacted David Spragg directly a while back regarding some research on this set, and did indeed gift him a single chip from this set too. To be honest, I am quite disappointed with the way David has handled this issue publicly on his forum, and been helping throw gas on this fire, kicking this interesting and quite possibly historic set to the curb so fast. This is definitely a different tone than what he had when discussing the issue with me privately. I was hoping when contacting him, that there might be some old records at his manufacturing business on what date this set was made, and by whom it was ordered, that David could share with me to aid in my research. I was told that since the chips were gold foil printed, in a fairly crude manner, that although the chips were professionally manufactured, the monogramming likely would have been done elsewhere handled by resellers like Abacrombie & Fitch etc., who would customize them with monograms locally for customers, so he had no records that could help me really. There was definitely considerable doubt from Davids side about this set from the start, but I felt it was definitely more in the "unsolved mystery" category, but now he and the rest of you look to be leaning to the idea that some kind of fraud is being perpetrated here. Hopefully we can move forward in a more objective, and positive way. There is now an inaccurate, and permanent public record on this story, so I am hoping to correct that now with what I know, and would like to add this to the public record as well, for the benefit of future researchers on this interesting chip set.

I am a long time chip and coin collector, and full time antique and collectibles dealer myself for over 30 years. I have always played cards in quite a serious way too, Ha. I am extremely familiar with the casinos of the world, gambling chips of all sorts, card rooms, and poker games. I have owned and sold many hundreds of vintage chips, and over 10,000 other antique and collectible items on eBay alone, and just as many items in the real world. If I do say so myself, I believe I have an excellent nose for "age", and like any dealer am vary wary of recent and older reproductions, and fake items of any kind, as they are the killer in my trade. After handling and buying and selling all sorts of items for a full time living for decades, and treasure hunting all over the world my whole life, you do get a feeling about things. Often they are very fishy right from the start, and your gut tells you something's up. Little clues lead you to that, and a general judgement is made about an item. These feelings are not always right of course, and all of us can get fooled from time to time, often after you have done further research on an item, once you own it. I, like everybody has made mistakes, and made a few bad buys, and only realized it later, after one learns more, but never in my lifetime have I ever tried to pass off an item I knew to be less than it seemed, to anybody else. This chip set, and the story behind it, never did, and still does not, ring any alarm bells on my part. The only question I have about this set come from David's inclination, that this set dates from the 1980's, due to what he describes as "paper inlays" on these chips. Is David correct? Possibly. Could he be mistaken? I think so, and was planning on keeping that to myself but since all of this is being discussed publicly with considerable inaccuracy, I want to speak up on that, but in keeping things good hearted and fun I am willing to make a small gentlemen's bet too!

This chip set was definitely not put together recently as some sort of scam, as is being implied here on the board, to fool gullible bidders at Heritage. Here is the full story for the record:

A few of these chips were put up up on eBay in 2001 in the very early days of eBay when it was much smaller and much less known, and since I buy and sell on there, and always keep an eye on chips, I bid and won them in the auction. I was quite impressed with them once delivered, and I asked the Florida seller where he got them, and he told me he had bought them from an antique shop in Dania, Florida, and they had the rest of the deluxe set in their store, but he had just bought a few to put on eBay. I ended up buying the rest of the set directly from the antique shop. I had heard the story from the eBay seller, and again by this antique dealer, about them being donated to a nearby thrift shop who put better items aside for them, but still really had my doubts about that story, as it is indeed almost too good to be true. After buying the chips, I let this antique dealer off the hook by saying the story was cute but I understood it could not be really relied upon, and no hard feelings. They insisted the story they shared was actually very true, so I asked them if they would write it out for me, and they said they gladly would, and did. I have found nothing so far to prove it is not an accurate story. It all adds up to my senses, and I will demonstrate why in some detail below for your reference, and the public record.

Just after my purchase in (2001, I contacted Robert L. White the noted JFK collectibles expert for suggestions, and he said that to authenticate the set better, it would great to try to get a letter from somebody close to the Kennedys. He said most Kennedys would not cooperate, but suggested Eunice Kennedy Shriver (JFK sister), or Pierre Salinger (JFK Press secretary), who may have remembered the set, or remember who may have given it to JFK as a gift or whatever. I planned to do that, but life got in the way, and sadly both Shriver, and Salinger passed away in 2004, and 2009. The set sat in my safe for 15 years. I knew that without better authentication, they would sell for a pittance of what they would be worth with it, as many similar but fully authenticated JFK items have sold in the $50,000 - $100,000+ range with solid authentication. Anyways, I recently decided to sell the set with what I had, as my life has changed directions and I have decided to let go of almost all of my most treasured items collected over my lifetime. This was a key item, and I have always had a good feeling about it, or it wouldn’t have sat in my safe for 15 years until now. I would have unloaded it years ago.

I am sure David must be knowledgeable, and may be respected here, but there are some points that David and others are trying to make publicly here, which I would like to try to correct for the record:

Paperwork/Provenance: There has been statements on this forum by David that at the time I contacted him, there was no paperwork, and it mysteriously appeared just prior to the auction. I may not have mentioned the paperwork to David, as I wasn't trying to convince him of anything. As someone in the chip manufacturing industry with a lineage back to the original manufacturer that utilized this mold design (Burt Co/Atlantic Molding/Classic), I wanted his unbiased opinion regarding the time frame period of the chip mold design etc. I was researching chip mold design types, and had seen a number of chips with this mold that had been in casino use around the correct 1950's / 1960's time period, and was mainly approaching David regarding that, plus I was hoping there might be some manufacturing records we could refer to for sets of this type. I wasn't trying to convince him or myself of anything. I was hoping he might have and share some manufacturing records on this item based on pictures I sent him, plus his first hand inspection of a chip that I couriered to him to inspect, and keep for his personal collection as thanks for any light he could share towards my research. I was not trying to confirm to myself or David that this set was the real deal, but was objectively moving forward like any detective would. He was never made aware of the provenance letter, as I was inquiring about manufacturing records mainly, to which said there were none, but to publicly suggest now that the paperwork is dubious as he did not know about it is a bit weird. I was contacting the person who held the manufacturing lineage of the chip to see if record existed, I was not laying out a case to him to authenticate the set for me, providing everything I had, I simply told him the story asi knew it, and asked about records, mold etc.

So the letter/note from the antique dealer, as provided along with the set at Heritage auctions, is indeed genuine, and truly dates to the time of my purchase in 2001, and was not fabricated by me or anybody else recently in order to try to fool a potential buyer now, as is being implied in this thread. Sheesh!

Inlays: David has stated to me at that time and here again on the board, that these JFK chips have paper inlays, implying that this assuredly dates them to a 1980's time period. These chips really varied in condition with some being really like new and some being heavily worn, almost abused, perhaps kids playing outside in the sun by the pool with chlorine or something. Although some were like new with typical crosshatching over the inlay proving these inlays were not added afterward or something like that. A number of the worn chips had the inlays lifting a bit and they looked to be white plastic discs, not paper of any type. David still holds a chip that I gave him, and can cut his open if he would like to confirm his assertion that these chips have paper inlays to this forum. Davids response to me was that he was quite sure that with the paper inlays he says they have, this set dated from the 1980's, so therefore undoubtedly could never have actually belonged to JFK. I was quite surprised by this, as the inlays especially the heavily worn and damaged ones did not look like paper to me, and the feel of the whole set had a much older feel that the 1980's as he was implying, but I left it at that, adding his info to my other research. I didn’t want to argue with him, just get his manufacturing input. I felt he had come to the wrong conclusion however, but I wanted to stay open to everything, and still do, but his assertion did not, and still does not make sense to me.

Location: The thrift shop, that reportedly received the donation of a number of household goods including this chip set, and this nearby antique dealer in the same town, of Dania, Florida, near the Fort Lauderdale airport, are located quite close to the Kennedy winter White House compound located in in Palm Beach, Florida. This can be confirmed by anybody with access to a map of Florida. Look for yourself.

JFK / Presidential use: I or Heritage has never implied that JFK was an avid poker player, or played with other famous people with this set, or anything like that. As we know from the the famous and record breaking Jackie Kennedy auction, that many of the items the Kennedys acquired were gifts from friends and other influential people. Although I consider this to be quite a deluxe set, much better than most people would have used for home game useage in the 1950's /60s, as they are basically commercial casino grade, along with a nice case with wooden chip trays etc. I understand that a President could have possibly had an even fancier set than this if he had one made up. He might likely get the absolute best. That doesn't mean that somebody else could not have had this lesser, but still quite deluxe set made as a gift to be given to him, which he perhaps made available for his kids to use in the rec room, or pool area. Some chips really showed that kind of wear. Presidents receive many gifts every day. I forget the exact condition of the chip I gave David, but some were so mint you could see the cross hatching over the inlay, and other were so worn that the inlay was lifting and many had the gold foil JFK monogram worn off to many different degrees. Nobody is implying that Kennedy himself played with these chips regularly, or even ever played poker at all. Nobody knows that, although the Cuban missile crises is often regarded as the biggest poker game in history, and we know he was a key player in that. Ha

Age: The leatherette case, and wooden trays that hold the chips had a definite look, smell, and style of 1950's / 60s era set, and not a 1980's era set that David was trying to tie the paper inlays to. Just look at the pictures for yourself. If I bought this set in 2001 and they were manufactured in the mid 1980s as David implies, they would only have been about 15 years old, and everything about this set reeked of being decades older than that. I would bet my left nut, that this set dates to the correct 1950’s/60’s time period despite what David is inferring. I guess it is possible that the set itself does date to the correct period, but the inlays were left blank, and somebody gold foil stamped the JFK monogram on them prior to 2001, but with the uneven wear and age on the stamping, and different chip wear being so disparate, faking all of that would be unlikely, if not impossible. If somebody custom stamped these for somebody other the President JFK, I think it is clear that it was done during that same time period, and not decades later as creating this disparate wear levels and "age” on different monograms and chips would essentially be impossible. I don’ t have detailed pictures of this as the chips left my hands, but whoever bought them can conform this and may show up here one day. Only better condition chips were selected for close up shots of the chips for the auction, so this point is not clear from any of the photos we have to review at the moment.

Price/Opening bid: using Heritage low reserve starting price as an indication that the set is a definite fake in nonsense. The provenance is quite weak as outlined above. Using this against Heritage is quite lame, as they had a good enough feeling about the set to take it, but they are not experts on chips, and understand the paperwork was quite thin. This is all to Heritage Auctions credit, and should not be used against them. They did no elaboration, or exaggeration, and only accurately told their potential bidders exactly what they had been told, and that is exactly what happened at my end with zero intention to deceive. The rumors on this forum actually may have cost me thousands of dollars in potential bids based on the doubt they were unfairly casting on the set to the die hard chip collector crowd. Thanks a million guys!

Conclusion:

So although we do not have strong evidence that prove these were President JFK’s, there is nothing to indicate they were not as is being implied here. Nothing in my detective work has given me any indication that they are not what they were said to be, and nothing was even slightly enhanced, or fabricated in order to deceive anybody:

The chip Mold was used during that time period is correct - 1941-1990’s. If this mold was say only used in the 1980's and later, then that would definitely prove they could not possibly be JFKs set. That is not the case here. This mold was commonly used during that 1950’s - 1960s period according to this chip mold reference: (look for DIAMOND AND SQUARES - DIASQR):

http://www.antiquegamblingchips.com/molddesign_geometric.htm

The whole set has the look and feel of the correct time period. 1950’s 1960’s era. Check out the pictures for yourself. Study the sturdy leatherette case with heavy wooden chip trays, and study the chips too. Does this look like a 1980s era set to you?

The note written by the dealer creates a paper-trail that ties the chips from me back 15 years to their purchase, back to the thrift shop, and back to the Kennedy compound.

The location fits with the story. The location of the thrift shop and antique shop in Dania, FL, are a reasonable drive from the Kennedy Palm Beach neighborhood, and very near the airport many people use to access the whole area.

The only doubt about this set comes from Davids idea that the inlays being paper proves they date to the 1980’s which doesn’t match with all these other factors, but this can be easily proven, or not.

Gentleman’s bet:

David holds one JFK chip from the set that I gave him myself, and if he wants to prove to the world that the inlay is paper as he is stating publicly here, proving this set couldn’t possibly date to the correct period, then why doesn’t he remove the inlay and photograph it for everybody on this forum to see if it is paper, or not.

I have sold off all of my chips except for my 10 absolute favorite casino chips that I have kept to hopefully inset into a poker table I hope to build one day for my home game in retirement, but will offer David the chip of his choice out of my small but beloved picture chip collection, if he puts up one nice minty picture chip out of his collection of equal value. If the inlay in his JFK chip is paper as he is telling the world here, he wins my chip, and if it is plastic as I am stating, I win his chip.

For you other chip detectives, who may also want to wade into this, I will also mail a genuine vintage Dunes money clip to anybody who can input anything of substance towards reaching a truthful conclusion here, only using logic, and reason, and not hype, or unfairly jumping to conclusions etc. I have a few of these money clips, so more than one ace detective prize may be awarded!

See the photo slideshow below of the JFK chip set, and the small collection of casino chips that David can chose from if he wins the bet, and a vintage Dunes money clip that is also up for grabs:

http://s809.photobucket.com/user/tradingphotos/slideshow/Casino

David, let us know if you agree to my Gentleman’s bet on the forum here, and which chip of the 10 you want, and what chip of equal value you will bet on the inlay issue (paper or plastic).

Happy chip Collecting and researching everybody! The Sultan will be watching us all to keep things honest!

Paul