Brief recap - What must be two years ago now, there surfaced on eBay a seller of 4, $5 Nevada Biltmore (Las Vegas) chips (rose, w/DOTS mold) from Tucson, AZ. That same week I found a seller at a local, Antique Faire (a monthly event) selling 4, $5 Nevada Biltmore (Las Vegas) chips (rose, w/DOTS mold).

The eBay seller was challenge by some collectors that there must be a box of chips (or at least more) and when I found 4 more it only complicated the issue. Over time, there have not been anymore eBay sales of these chips and this past weekend, I learned a tiny bit more about the eight of them that showed up in Tucson.

While walking through an antique mall here in Tucson this past weekend, I stopped at one booth to look around. It happened that the owner was there and he asked he could help me find anything. I said that I was interested in anything with a casino logo on it, like chips, dice and cards.

He said he had nothing, but sometimes you can never tell what you might find. I asked what he meant by that and he told me that several yaers ago he was at the local swap meet (a place I visit every 2 or 3 months) and bought a little baggie with 4 chips in that turned out to be valuable. I asked, how so? He said he had a friend (another antique dealer) that put them on eBay as a single lot, but then offered them individually because they didn't know what they had.

This part coincides with the scenario that did happen. The eBay seller was evidently contacted by someone to buy the lot of four and cancel the auction. Instead, the seller cancelled the auction and re-listed each chip individually, eventually selling all 4. During the somewhat headed discussions, the seller said that he/she did not know where the chips came from, as they were selling them for someone else.

Well, it seems that I met that "someone else" this weekend! He said that he bought the chips from a seller that was at the swap meet from out-of-town. The seller was in-town with his wife (snow bird visit) and he was passing time by selling at the swap meet. This is probably the same person I bought a baggie of 4 chips from at the antique faire, but at the time of my purchase, I only asked if he had more. Not knowing they were a good find, I did not ask where they came from. Only later did I see that they had value and the faire was gone.

Anyway, this just seems to say that the chips (8 of them) came from where the snow birds live, which is unknown.

Well, maybe we'll learn more at a another time.

Here is a picture of one of the chips I found...

Thanks for looking!

Jim