This saga began some years ago when Armin Pfaender gave me a list of California card rooms for which he had never found chips. He had been looking for years and years, and asked me if I knew anything about them. I did not. He said, if ever I was in the cities where the card rooms were located, to ask around and see what I could find. And so a new quest was handed me. I dubbed the list "Armin's List of Greatest Mystery" and began searching . . . at chip shows, Conventions, wherever. Nothing.

A few years passed. It was September of 2016 and I happened to be on I-5 heading northbound into Colusa County (no idea where I was going - maybe the Colusa Casino) and saw the Arbuckle exit. I remember there were two cardrooms on the list for that town, Tex's and Tuffy's. Actually, the Arbuckle exit gets split billing with College City, but I have never had any interest in seeing another college city (which insofar as I know, has no college anyway). I exited and found myself on the old Route 99 going through town. And that's when I saw it:

Tex's Tavern, as big as life! No shortage of parking, so I pulled over and got the courage to walk in. You see, I'm not really a bar person and after going into Cesar's in Watsonville, I was pretty much put off on bars for the rest of my life. Anyway - there was a man nursing a beer and watching a TV screen on the wall. And a lady behind the bar. I was not exactly inconspicuous. They stared at me. I hemmed-and-hawed and asked, "Is this a cardroom?" "Used to be," said the bartender. "Not any more."

"Ummm - did you have chips for the games?"

"Nope. My father used wooden free-drink nickels. Folks played with those."

"So that's how they did it!" I exclaimed. Now she was really looking at me strangely. I had to think of something, fast.

"Did you know you are on Armin Pfaender's List of Greatest Mystery?" (OK, not the greatest come-on, I guess.)

"Hmmpf."

So I tried to explain a little about chip collecting and that nobody ever saw anything from Tex's. I asked, "Do you have any I could buy?"

"Nope. We discarded them all."

I was crestfallen. "I have one that I keep as a souvenir," she said. "It's not for sale."

Just then a commercial interrupted the TV show. "Years ago," she said, wistfully, "We used to get car loads of people up here from Sacramento on the weekends, to play cards, drink and shoot pool. They couldn't gamble in Sacramento so they came across into Colusa County. Folks used to call us 'Bar-Buckle.'"

I mentioned that Sacramento now has quite a few cardrooms and some nearby Indian casinos too. She nodded. I asked, "Was this place also called Tuffy's?"

"No, Tuffy's was a block up the street. It's gone now."

I thanked her and left. Thought maybe I should buy a beer from her but I had a ways to drive. With my luck, the Colusa Sheriff would finally come down to Arbuckle to patrol.

When I got home, I told Armin of what I'd learned. I looked online for a Tex's wooden nickel. There was one shown on a token guide (something akin to the ChipGuide but for tokens). So there must be at least 2 tokens out there!

From time to time over the years, I would check eBay for a Tex's wooden nickel. Nothing ever showed up. Never saw one at a flea market, either.

Until last week. So anti-climatic, it was silly. A Tex's Tavern nickel for sale on eBay for a few bucks. I bid and won. And here it is, possibly only one of three that exist:

But perhaps YOU know of another? For now, one of California's rarest "chips." Happy Cinco de Mayo!