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Sunday, September 05, 1999
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
In the Chips
Collectors gathering colorful symbols of Las Vegas gambling scene
By Ed Vogel and Joan Patterson
Review-Journal
After a long night parking cars at The Mirage, Pete Rizzo looked into the valets' tip box and noticed seven or eight colorful gaming chips from different Las Vegas casinos.
"We get tipped in chips a lot," he said. "The hookers seem to always give us chips for parking their cars."
Rizzo examined the chips closely and realized they were an attractive collectible that epitomized his chosen city of Las Vegas. He quickly got hooked on collecting.
"I just collect Las Vegas," Rizzo said. "There is something about chips from Vegas. They are pieces of art and little time capsules of Las Vegas. Everything about them is cool."
Mounted in holders in black felt carpet on the wall in his Summerlin home are about 600 gaming chips, with an estimated value of $30,000.
His is not the best or largest collection. He just wants to collect every Las Vegas chip with "a cool graphic."
There are some doozies on the walls.
Rizzo's most valuable chip is a Desert Inn variety from the 1950s that is worth about $1,000. He also has a commemorative chip that features Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel. He owns unusual chips such as those distributed to celebrate the Tropicana's Miss Hawaiian Tropics contest showing bathing beauties, along with chips depicting race car drivers and even one of baseball player Shoeless Joe Jackson distributed by the Las Vegas Club.
Chips have benefited Rizzo personally. From the sale of his first chip collection, he made the down payment on his home. Since re-entering collecting last year, he has replaced every chip he sold.
One of his El Rancho Vegas chips is singed from the fire in 1960 that destroyed the then-prominent casino on the southwest corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Sahara Avenue.
"Security guards pulled out boxes of chips during the fire," said Rizzo, admitting he once scaled the fence to look closely at the El Rancho Vegas site.
He also has an old Dunes chip he thinks was among the batch extricated when the hotel was blown up. According to legend, thousands of chips had been embedded for years in the cement floor of the Dunes' Oasis gaming area. Some somehow got into the hands of collectors after the hotel was imploded.
There also are chips from the old Thunderbird hotel from the 1950s that served as business cards for casino executives. The hotel is pictured on one side and the executive's name on the reverse side.
Chips tell the gaming history of Las Vegas. They were played on tables at the El Rancho Vegas, at Vegas Vic's Pioneer Club, and at forgotten West Las Vegas clubs such as the Moulin Rouge, El Rio and Carver House.
Steve Cutler, curator at the Tropicana's Casino Legends Hall of Fame, has about 12,000 chips, some of them going back to 1931 when gambling was legalized in Nevada. Most of his collection, the largest compilation of Nevada chips in the world, is on display at the hall of fame, including a chip used in Siegel's Flamingo Hotel during the 1940s and every type of chip the El Rancho ever issued.
During the past five years, he has seen the hobby of chip collecting boom in Las Vegas because of the popularity of gaming throughout the country and the trend toward limited edition chips, a practice started by the MGM Grand in the mid-1990s. Cutler estimates there were about five serious collectors in town in 1994. Now there are at least 100.
"(Collecting) is an out of control fire. It's more than a little flame. ... Go into any casino and talk to any pit boss and ask about collecting, and they either collect themselves or know someone who does," he noted.
The longtime Las Vegan has seen his own likeness printed on a chip. The Flamingo Hilton in Laughlin issued a $5 Cutler chip four years ago for its grand opening. Today it is worth $60, he said with a chuckle.
Among the rarest chips are $5 and $25 Flamingo varieties, issued before Siegel's murder in 1947. They sell for $6,000 to $9,000. The implosions of longtime casinos starting in the mid-1990s have raised the value of chips, too. The Landmark's are among the most prized because there are so few in circulation compared to places such as the Sands, said David Harber, who sells Las Vegas chips through his business Cheques in the Mail Inc. Some of the casino's $1 and $5 chips, for example, are valued at hundreds of dollars, Harber noted.
Limited edition chips, or new chips released during a set period of time and in low quantities, have their own appeal to collectors. Those sought after by aficionados include grand-opening chips, chips from Strip hotels as opposed to locals casinos, and limited editions commissioned in low mintages, Harber said. The Tropicana, for example, is known for keeping a tight reign on its rare releases. Finally, there are the Hard Rock Hotel chips that are collectible because of the Hard Rock name and some unusual releases that include the likenesses of rock stars from Marilyn Manson to Sheryl Crow, Harber said.
The millennium may add its own twist to collecting. Some casinos, including the Monte Carlo, Boardwalk Holiday Inn and Hard Rock, have already released limited edition millennium chips and within the next few months "we're expecting a ton," Harber said.
Those in the know realize that what most people call chips technically are "checks." Chips are nondenominational objects, typically played on roulette tables. A check has a numerical value written on it.
But since everybody calls them chips, so do collectors.
Tokens -- which have not caught on as much with collectors -- are the metal coins played in slot machines.
"Some people specialize in chips from hole-in-the-wall places," Rizzo said. "They can have Ely chips. I'll take a Vegas chip any day."
Rizzo won't sell any of these chips, but he does trade duplicates. When The Venetian opened, he headed for the cage and purchased 40, $5 grand-opening chips. Within 16 hours, he had traded them to fellow collectors.
"I could have gotten rid of them in eight hours," he said. "Everybody wanted them."
But the growing popularity of chips on the Internet, particularly those sold on the eBay Web site, has its pitfalls. Rizzo said too many people deal nearly worthless chips to unsuspecting buyers.
As a consequence, he and other collectors concerned about the integrity of their hobby serve as the "chip police."
They e-mail prospective buyers that the chips on which they have placed bids are worthless and they should cancel their offers. They also deliver e-mail tongue lashings to people trying to gouge bidders.
"There are some greedy people out there," Rizzo said. "Like in any hobby, you have to be careful. Not everyone is honest."
He advises collectors to purchase the latest edition of The Chip Rack, a book that lists values of gaming chips. They also can check his Web site at http://www.lvdi.net/~chipz/Home.htm.
Michael Knapp, the Ohio-based author of The Chip Rack, said people quickly have wised up to the value of chips.
"You used to find old chips in flea markets, but not any more," he said. "There are not too many dealers beating the bushes looking for chips. People have to be dumb to let valuable chips go."
Because of their increasing value, Knapp advises collectors to specialize -- collect just Las Vegas chips, or those from riverboats or Indian casinos.
"The best policy is to collect what you enjoy collecting," he added. "You are not likely to get rich selling chips."
Rizzo refuses to collect chips from the Four Queens and Fiesta. He said they deliberately manufacture lots of commemorative chips for the sole purpose of inducing collectors to buy them.
Since these chips never are played on a table, the casinos make a nice profit.
"It's another example of greed," he said.
Like any collector, Rizzo dreams of finding the mother lode of forgotten chips. Somewhere out in Las Vegas is an old man or woman who went to the Flamingo opening and stuffed a couple of chips in a drawer.
"I know they are out there," he said. "I'd just like to see them.
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1999 Best of Las Vegas Results.
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Printable version of this story
Collector Pete Rizzo has more than 600 chips displayed at his Summerlin home.
Photo by Gary Thompson.
A limited edition Betty Boop chip from the MGM Grand.
A Valentine's Day limited release from the Luxor boast colorful images.
These roulette chips were issued when the Dunes opened in 1955.
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