No chips today!

Thought you might like to read a couple articles about chip manufacturers. The TR King article was found by our “Friend Of The Hobby” while researching a TR King movie prop chip from 1964.

The Taylor & Company and HE Mason article came to me from Riverboat Rick through Dave Brown.

TR King Downey California:
Paul Endy is being interviewed in 1971 as the owner of TR King. Paul opened Paulson in roughly 1964 on Main Street in Las Vegas. He bought out TR King from Milton Anderson in 1957. He was part owner prior to 1957. That makes him the owner of both TR King and Paulson 1964 through the early 1970’s.

Paul extols the virtue of TR King chips. I am not aware of any wrong doings with chips by TR King. I am aware of things TR King did with their dice. TR KING voluntarily stopped selling all casino supplies in Nevada on Jan. 25, 1974 to avoid a Nevada Gaming Commission investigation. This had to do with funny dice coming out of TR King.

I documented TR Kings funny dice in “Illegal Of The Day -Illinois 7-Japan-Monte Carlo 12/8/2010.”
If you have not read it, click here.
http://www.thechipboard.com/index.cgi/page/1/md/read/id/1069359/sbj/illegal-of-the-day-illinois-7-japan-monte-carlo/

It documents the story of Jason lee and his history of using TR King funny dice on 3 continents for 20 years. A lot of this story came from TR King record cards for Jason Lee’s purchases. Of course nothing about funny dice is in the article.

LA Times—11jan1971

Taylor & Company and the HE Mason Company Chicago, Illinois:
The investigation in the following article describes investigators working undercover to nail the 2 companies for selling dishonest gambling devises.

Taylor was actually owned by Joseph (Joey O’Brien) Aiuppa, a made member of the Chicago mob.
HE Mason actually operated a 2nd company called the Kansas City Card Company that sold the devises. I have a KCC catalogue somewhere. A number of the older distributors sold the devises including BC Wills and HC Edwards. They sold them to anyone that wanted them including casino’s and their customers.

The main source of the dice table magnets in the article (called crap joints) was in Oklahoma. The old distributors acted as jobbers for the crap joints in most cases. I read letters to and from the source about ordering crap joints some time ago. It was from one of the major distributors.

Chicago Tribune 1961