While cleaning up piles of old collecting paper for my move I found the fax I've been looking for for a long time. Back in 1994 when I first began collecting chips I heard that chip maker T.R. King was making available some really old chips that they had in their vault. I called and asked for info. They sent some pictures (which I still haven't found) and prices. I thought the prices were pretty high (I'd never paid $50 for a chip at that time) so I sat on it. I called again a few months later and they mailed me this fax. The second column is the denominations of the chips. The third column is their latest asking price. The last (handwritten) column is what they had asked on their first mailing. I could see they had found what chippers were really willing to pay and had raised prices again; I gave up at that point.

You might like to compare the prices 9 years ago with some of the SMCRWN chips in the Hank Boss auction, and in the Chip Rack. I should have bought them all (all but the Kings Castle, that is). How about the Prima Donna, Reno $2.50 for $75.. now a $200 chip. Or the Sands, LV set of 5, 25, and 100 for $300... now worth $1000+? It also helps explain why the Tropicana red $25 is now only an L value. A number of dealers bought these and reoffered them at 2-3x their cost, where they still are today.

In case you're wondering, these were apparently overruns kept as samples in case the customer ordered more. Some were defective or cosmetic rejects but none were cancelled. All were obsolete when offered in 1994 of course, but you have to wonder if the clubs that were still open (Golden Nugget, Tropicana, etc.) were asked for permission. I don't know what the quantities were but generally more than 1 chip of a kind as they were available for quite a long period of time. Maybe they still have some {g}???

Just a piece of collecting history I thought I document before it gets any older and fuzzier in the memory of collectors that were around in the last century.