Got the chip on the right a couple of days ago and as I was looking at it the wheels started turning! Have you ever seen a cancelled Ely chip? This is a table veteran TCR puts as used in "the 50's" and not a floor sweeper. Come to think of it... seems small town Nevada chips are scarecly ever seen cancelled, exception Lake Tahoe. Whattya think?

Thought this would be an interesting addition to my collection since I have all the Hotel Nevada Ely chips. Been to the town about 4 or 5 times, a good place to end a day when I'm in an exploring type mood traveling in Nevada. Hotel Nevada is the place to stay for collectors. It is just in it's own little place in the universe there, examples:

• I've seen the 21 dealers there greet a passing local on the floor and allow them to make a 50¢ bet.
• You can win a 1948 Harley at certain slot machines.
• Frail little old ladies must wait ,in view of the front desk, at the only elevator to get to their rooms because the beer guy is stacking cases and kegs of brew into the lift for delivery to the cooler in the basement.
• Good meat 'n potatoes resturant where you can look at the Hotel's chip collection as well as their barbed wire, Roy Rogers and boxing photo collection.

I've taken a few walks around Ely and small town Nevada is different from other places I've been. Three blocks from the Hotel that way and there is the grade school while three blocks that way from the hotel is The Big 4. The Big 4 is a cathouse. It looks...inexpensive. Gaming seems to be different as well in small town Nevada over the years than what we might find in Reno or Las Vegas. Got out a '01 Chip Chat for an excellent rundown on Ely to see if Mr. Saito could lend any insight to Ely cancellations. Doug draws on his research, Harvey Fuller's and Phil Jensen's for a pretty comprehensive picture of the town. But as we find in this hobby, some things are probably just going to be unknowable. Several of the town's chips from bygone joints got cancelled by fire. They had lots of fires in Ely, just ask the insurance guys. Hotel Nevada has had several owners and probably several other folks leasing the casino over the years. Chip issues have come and gone and in the case of the only $100 Hotel Nevada cheque, storage, disposition and use of different chips was kinda um, casual? I'm guessing that in the past more small town chips got put in box and deposited to closet shelves than actually cancelled. Ely's not the kind of place for folks all worried about all that gaming rigamaroll that the fancy pants in Carson City might have in mind.

So. Glad I have the chip, seems like something you don't often see. Please add on if yuo have any comment on small town cancelled chips. Stikes me as interesting.