Judy,
I just came across your post about the Playboy Hat & Cane chips. I would be interested in anything you can tell me about the source of these. I've been trying to track them backwards and find out who aquired them from Burt or Crockfords originally. Here is what John was refering to from my book...

Were the Hat and Cane London cheques ever inside the casino?

The initial planning done by Victor Lownes 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 eventually fell through, but not before Crockford’s had ordered a large supply of cheques with the Playboy logo from an American manufacturer, according to Victor Lownes as told in his book. A deal between Playboy and 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 casino causing Playboy to file a complaint with authorities in Las Vegas.

Could the Hat and Cane cheques, that lately have become so plentiful in unused condition, be the “Crockford cheques”? That would explain the large quantity of Hat and cane London cheques surfacing in the United States over the years, all in new condition as well as the absence of these cheques in casino photographs. Burt Company records show the order for these cheques being placed in 1966 just before the order for the Small Crown cheques was placed with T.R. King.