HARVEST ADVENTURES FROM AN ADDICTED CHIP COLLECTOR

BY RICHARD “REGGIE” GUMMER
SOME PEOPLE HAVE COMPULSIONS TO GAMBLE, SOME TO AMASS FORTUNES AND OTHER’S, THEY JUST LIKE TO WRITE STORIES; YEAH, THAT WOULD BE ME. I WAS NEVER VERY GOOD AT IT ; BUT I HAVE DONE IT OVER THE YEARS JUST THE SAME.
IF ANY OF YOU WANT ANY INSIDE INFORMATION ON ANY CASINO THAT I’VE BEEN TO, I WOULD BE HAPPY TO TELL YOU WHAT I CAN.
REGGIE

A GUEST AUTHOR’s HARVEST STORY

PASADENA ROSE BOWL – PASADENA, CA

Travis H. D. Lewin

Here is one of my several harvesting stories that you may publish. It was 1978 when I was a visiting teacher at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. Being then a beginner collecting mostly antique gaming chips with designs and knowing about the monthly Pasadena Rose Bowl show, I took my reluctant 9 & 13 old daughters and drove from Malibu to the bowl. Promising, as I had done before, a quarter if they spotted a chip and 50 cents if I bought it, we started around the stadium, my kids running ahead. Despite the hundred or so dealers I was finding nothing when the kids ran back and dragged me to a booth where they had spotted a grubby looking carousel with 200 or so chips.. My youngest daughter announced I owed them a ”zillion” quarters as there were hundreds of chips. After explaining that they would get only one quarter or one Kennedy each, I looked over the chips and saw only numbers w/ “DI” on them. But since I had come a long way and had found nothing else I asked the dealer, the price. She said, $25. Not really wanting them as I didn’t collect numbered chips, I offered $10 and settled reluctantly for $15. I took the chips to the car, storing them in a paper bag in my trunk and forgot about them. That May when I drove back to Syracuse I took the set and put it in my closet. In 1984 I closed our home (having divorced) and clearing out my closet found the bag and carousel of chips. But by then I had expanded my collection to include casino and club chips and staring at the DI letters and numbers I thought “could these be Desert Inn roulettes. Rushing to my Chip Rack book I saw that they indeed were DI roulette—rated “H” Over the years I sold and traded those 200 unwanted chips for $10 or so each. (I did not tell my children less they demanded a cut.)

By Travis H. D. Lewin