In the last issue of the Club magazine, Mel Jung penned a great article on the early days of the hobby and some of the original folks involved in this pursuit of little round discs of clay. Regardless of what one thinks of Bill Borland, LEs/commeratives or the slabbing issue, a passage I found in a book, when taken in proper context, makes one think about where the hobby has come from, where we're heading and why each of us started doing this.

"Bill Borland, founder of World-Wide Casino Exchange in Las Vegas, says, "A lot of stamp collectors, and coin collectors, are abandoning that hobby and converting over to chips and tokens. Because every time someone farts, they do a commerative coin on it. You can't keep up with it. But there was only one El Rancho. There was only one old Bugsy Siegel's Flamingo." Borland says a $25 chip from the original El Rancho sold recently for $125.00, but as for a $100 chip from the same ill-fated casino: "I can't put a price tag on it."
The passage was from a 2 1/2 page section of the book "Las Vegas Behind the Tables", written by Barney Vinson and published by Gollehon Press, Inc. The date of publication was 1986! Reprinted in 1988!