You touch on a bunch of subjects Gene.

The only unapproved chips ever sold by a casino in CO (that I know of) were the Bronco Billy's Black Hawk "I was a Jack Off" $5 chip (in case anyone is wondering, the chip shows 4 cards to a royal flush with a seven of spades in place of the Jack that would complete the royal), and it was only available on the day the casino closed. The Gaming Commision considered the chip to be "in poor taste" and rejected it. Being that they were only available on the day the casino closed, and weren't negotiable currency on any table, it was fully represented as to what it was. The idea was, the chip couldn't be used because it wasn't approved and they could sell it on closing day because you could no longer use any of their chips on the tables because gaming was suspended in that location pending transfer of the gaming license. An aside, many of the employees have been wearing the jack off version of tee shirts as uniforms since I first went into BB's Cripple Creek almost seven years ago.

Colo regs require a casino that closes, even without prior public notice, to arrange to redeem their chips and/or tokens for at least 90 past the closing at the cage of an operating casino.

I don't think Fed regs disallow putting chips (approved or not) into souvenir key rings to put on sale in the gift shop. That's the only way you can buy a Jubilee UNC $1 chip today, $4.95 per. As far as I know, the Fed regs only state that you can't use a chip to BUY anything in a giftshop.

What I'm finding most frustrating about Colo collecting is there aren't any rules concerning retiring and UN-retiring chips at a casino that hasn't closed. Johnny Nolan's has all of their $1 chips (that aren't already in collectors' possession) in the vault, won't cut loose of any of them. They pulled all table games last year making their $5 and $25 chip obsolete, then brought back Black Jack this year using the same $5 and $25 chips. The Palace did much the same except, they removed their Black Jack table a second time replacinmg it with a dealers choice Poker table and the formerly retired (or obsolete, however you want to label it) $1 chips are back in play with their $5 chips.

As I said, I don't know what the current status is concerning foreign currency acceptance. I have bought chips at the cage twice that were from other casinos. One was a token only place that I just told the guy that I collect chips and that day a recently widowed woman asked them to cash in some obsoletes at face....they did, and he hesitated before letting me buy them at face (actually, he hesitated even telling me that they had them, he knew they were worth more than face). The other occasion was a casino who's house chips were all worn. He couldn't offer me a decent example of their own chip, but had several chips from casinos across the street that were quite fresh. He sold those to me at face. I did tip these people, as we all should those who understand our hobby.

Do let me know if you're gonna be heading our way next month.

Bob ....that's the longest BB post I've EVER written......sorry if it was too rambling....