Last week I posted about encased Silver Dollars from casinos. The scan shows a few of these and some other casino memorabilia that I collect.

The encased Silver Dollar in plastic from the Wagon Wheel was probably a key chain fob sold in the gift shop. I’ve seen six of these in the past few years and curiously each example had the dollar set so the reverse is visible, i.e. can’t see the date on the coin. (The example on the left in the scan is from another casino.) The other encased Silver Dollars are set in white metal casings and were also most likely key chain or watch chain fobs, or lucky pocket pieces.

The second group are simulated encased Silver Dollars also known as “Las Vegas Dollars”. Souvenir good luck tokens again sold in gift shops. These are interesting as they are minted from a single piece of steel. The work on some examples is so good that I am hard pressed to see the difference between one and a real encased Silver Dollar at first glance. Same size as a chip.

The last group are encased pennies (“cent” is the actual word) from casinos. These are usually round or horseshoe shaped and are stamped on the other side with a good luck slogan; “Keep Me And Never Go Broke”, or “Keep Me And Always Have Money”, etc. Many have a hole stamped in the aluminum collar for suspension on a key chain. The first encased cents were made by the Whitehead & Hoag Novelty Co. of Newark, NJ for the Pan American Exposition in 1901. Literally tens of thousands of businesses have had these made over the years as a cheap promotional give-a-way. The collector’s club, Associated Collectors of Encased (ACE), is currently attempting to catalog all known encased cents. This is a project that is expected to take three to five years. Ohio, Michigan, New York, & Pennsylvania are the States of which the most encased cents have been attributed. The last I heard from the Penn. cataloger he had over 1000 different pieces listed. The State with the fewest? Vermont.

Well, you were expecting this, weren’t you? Here comes the plug. If you have any of these for sale or trade please let me know. I’ll make you a crazy buy or trade offer. Holy Cow! I'll even trade chips for them.

Dave Smith in New Hampshire
"LIVE FREE OR DIE"