Here is this week’s featured Story by Steve Cutler that was posted on CCA Facebook. The story had so many great photos that we had to post it in two parts.

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Paul Schaffer,
CCA Social Media Director.

The Chip Set That Couldn’t Be Made But Was
By Steve Cutler

The year was 1996 and I had just launched an advertising campaign for all three Flamingo Hilton properties in Nevada. The new marketing image for the Flamingo would be “Cool Bird”. This image was used in billboards, magazines and basically all forms of media available at that time. Once again, I visited my friend at Paulson Gaming, Paul Endy, and asked him to do the impossible. He was always happy to see me, but he also knew that I always wanted something different. Thankfully, Paul loved a challenge and “NO” was not in his vocabulary. He always found a way to make it happen and to this day he remains one of my heroes for having this wonderful quality. What I wanted to do was create a twelve-piece chip set for each casino. Each chip would have a different classic car pictured, for a total of thirty-six different chips. Of course, they would all be sequentially serial numbered, try putting together a set of all thirty-six with the same serial numbers. So far not so difficult. The reverse would prove to be a challenge. The Flamingo Hilton Las Vegas would have their marque logo, The Flamingo Hilton Laughlin would have a classic Flamingo logo, and then the challenge. For the Reno property I wanted each chip to have a different reverse utilizing the new “COOL BIRD” logo. This would literally create two sets in one, the obverse picturing twelve different classic cars and the reverse picturing twelve different Cool Birds. Once again Paul would tell me “Your Crazy”, my reply was always the same. I agreed with him and said, “I know you can do it”. He told me the cost would be prohibitive as there were just too many steps in the manufacturing process and combined with the sequentially serial numbers this would not be a good idea. I wasn’t done, I also wanted new roulette chips for the Reno and Laughlin properties using the new “Cool Bird” logo. When he quoted me a price for the job, I had to remind him that there were no commissions involved and a better price would be needed. Fortunately, my client gave me the financial freedom to make all of this happen. It has been over twenty-five years since I created this set and no one else has done anything even remotely similar. The Reno set was probably the most expensive limited edition set of chips ever produced. In the chip collecting world, all of the Cool Bird chips remain popular to this day. In fact, the chip produced to promote a gaming collectable show in Laughlin utilized the Cool Bird logo and won the chip of the year award.

Note that all three chip sets have the same matching numbers.