Monday, May 17, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Coin dealer finds treasure in warehouse

Californian buys gaming memorabilia, silver dollars from Nevada casino owner's heirs

CARSON CITY -- When Santa Barbara, Calif., coin dealer Ronald J. Gillio gazed in the musty warehouse on the outskirts of Reno last year he could not believe his eyes: Inside were boxes and boxes of commemorative casino spoons, matches, key chains and coasters -- gaming junk accumulated over decades.

But locked in safes in the warehouse was what he really was after -- bags and bags of silver dollars, more than 100,000 in all. There were also thousands of casino chips in denominations from $1 to $100, old casino counting machines, a Seeburg jukebox and three vintage roulette wheels, including one with a rare single zero slot.

Gillio bought it all -- junk and treasure -- for an undisclosed price. The property had been accumulated by the late Lincoln Fitzgerald, who at one time owned the Nevada Club in downtown Reno, the Nevada Lodge at Lake Tahoe and Fitzgeralds in Reno. Gillio dubbed the find "the Fitzgerald's hoard."

"It makes you wonder just how many other hidden treasures are still sitting in other Nevada warehouses," he said.

Fitzgerald died in 1981 at age 88. His wife, Meta, died in March at age 92. Gillio purchased the cache from their heirs.

Why Fitzgerald hoarded old coins and knickknacks in a warehouse is a mystery to Gillio. He stored supplies for his casinos there. After his death, his family got out of the gaming business, and the treasures in the warehouse remained a secret known only to them. Coins were locked in safes, but other items could have been carted off by burglars.

Some of the more interesting items will be on display in Las Vegas on Friday and Saturday at the antique arms and coin show at Mandalay Bay. Coins and chips will be graded and certified by the Numismatic Guaranty Corp. and sold to collectors. Gillio figures the face value of the coins and chips is around $500,000.

"It is amazing what some people keep," he said. "Things other people would throw away, Fitzgerald kept. I guess he had a sentimental attachment to them. It took us 60 days to clear out the warehouse."

For Gillio, finding rare coins is a way of life. The late Ted Binion called on him to appraise his collection of silver dollars back when they were still stored in the Horseshoe Club.

He has conducted more than 75 auctions of multimillion-dollar coin collections and been the official coin appraiser for the state of California. Gillio says his company sells more than $20 million worth of coins to collectors a year. He also is a longtime contributor to Guide of United States Coins, the so-called "Red Book," or bible for coin collectors.

Gillio has a special fondness for coins from the Carson City Mint, which operated only from 1870 to 1893. As a boy in the early 1960s, he began collecting Carson City coins.

Coin World Editor Beth Deisher said the Fitzgerald's find is the lead story in this week's issue of her publication.

"We don't know yet the specific dates and mint marks and whether they are rare varieties," she said. "But the Morgan (silver) dollar is among the most widely collected U.S. coins. When coins have been unavailable to collectors for this long of time, it creates a sensation in the marketplace."

After hauling away valuable items in the biggest Brink's semitruck he could rent, Gillio called friends and let them cart away place mats, key chains and other trinkets.

"There are only so many little spoons saying Nevada Club on them you want to keep," he said. "What could I do with 10,000 key chains? I kept a couple boxes and let them have the rest."

Many of the items were wrapped in old newspapers. Gillio figures much of the material was placed in the warehouse in the mid-1960s.

"1964 was the last year the United States Mint made silver coinage for circulation, and people started to keep the old silver coins they won at the gaming tables," he said. "So the casinos began putting away their silver coins in the mid-1960s, and there they were 40 years later in the warehouse."

Scott Travers, the former vice president of the American Numismatic Association and the author of "One-Minute Coin Expert," said Gillio is "legendary in numismatics for finding hoards of rare and interesting coins."

Deisher added Nevada has a reputation as the place where large amounts of coins are secreted away.

Besides the Binion and Fitzgerald collections, Reno real estate investor Lavere Ridgefield died in 1974 and left a stash of 400,000 silver coins to his family. His family has given land south of Reno for the expansion of the University of Nevada, Reno campus.

What Gillio did not find was slot machines. The Fitzgerald family previously sold off the Nevada Club's antique slot machine collection.

In the Fitzgerald stash, he found empty bags from the Carson City Mint dating to the 1880s. While not particularly valuable, Gillio figures the bags and other gaming memorabilia have historical significance for Nevada.

He plans to donate some items to the Nevada Historical Society in Reno and the Nevada State Museum in Carson City. The museum is in the same building that housed the mint.

Though not in the same league as Bugsy Siegel, Fitzgerald was an infamous figure. As a young man, he was reportedly a bookkeeper for Detroit's "Purple Gang," a mob organization that specialized in bringing in liquor from Canada during Prohibition.

He moved to Northern Nevada, bought into the Nevada Club in 1946, purchased the Tahoe Biltmore in 1957, renaming it the Nevada Lodge, and opened Fitzgerald's-Reno in 1976.

Three years after opening the Nevada Club, Fitzgerald was shot as he opened his garage door. Police speculated it was an attempted mob hit. Fitzgerald was hospitalized for nearly six months and had a limp for the remainder of his life.

Dwayne Kling, a Reno writer who worked 40 years for the gaming industry, said there was talk that the Purple Gang ordered Fitzgerald killed. A few months earlier, he had been convicted of illegal gambling and fined $52,000 in Detroit.

Fitzgerald clearly knew he was a target. After coming out of the hospital, he moved into the Nevada Club permanently. He rarely left and employed bodyguards. Fitzgerald was so afraid of another attack that he never allowed his picture to be taken. Even today, the Nevada Historical Society has no photos of Fitzgerald in its extensive photo archives.

"That's the story I was told," said Peter Bandurrago, director of the Historical Society. "Fitzgerald hid away."