Wow, the first time in a week I've been able to read the board and you guys are talking about Playboy London. Last month I wrote an article for the club magazine on Playboy's London chips and mentioned the Hat and Cane chips. Here's an excerpt from the article:

"...was the largest casino operator in England. This article addresses only the Hyde Park chips which generally are marked “London”.
Lownes initial planning for the first Playboy casino included an arrangement with Crockford’s, an established British gaming house. Crockford’s would manage the club for a percentage of the profits. This arrangement eventually fell through, but not before Crockford’s had ordered a large supply of chips with the Playboy logo from an American manufacturer. A deal with the cheque manufacturer could not be reached, so Playboy ordered a complete new set of cheques from another American manufacturer (T. R. King, Small Crown mold pattern). A few years later some of the Crockford chips appeared in the London Playboy casino. The source of these chips was traced back to an official of a Las Vegas casino causing Playboy to file a complaint with the authorities in Las Vegas, this according to Victor Lownes as he tells it in his book.

I am certain that the Hat and Cane chips, that have lately become so plentiful in unused condition, are the “Crockford Chips.” That would explain the large quantity of London Hat and Cane chips surfacing in the US over the years, all in new condition, as well as the absence of these chips in casino photographs."

I have many dozens of photos of the Playboy casinos and none of them show the Hat and Canes in use. I'd love to trace all these chips back to the source and find out who was holding on to them all this time (38 yrs).

Tom