Great story Phil ! I knew Slim since the early 1980's. We did a number of antique slot machine deals over the years, plus some really interesting chip deals.

Here's one of my better Slim Ewing stories. It was around late 1980's. I was in Vegas to make a deal with Slim for an old antique slot machine. We met at one of his warehouses I think it was on Industrial. After making the slot machine deal I asked Slim about any old Vegas chips he had. He went over to an old metal locker and pulled out a box of chips. They were the pink $2.50 chips from the Desert Inn Casino. He asked me if I wanted these, of course I said yes. I asked him " How Much " his reply was 50 bucks, " but you got to take them all ". He went back to the locker and pulled out 4 more boxes. He went on to tell me the story about how the casino ordered the chips, but never paid for them. He went on to say, he was tired of looking at them, and wanted them gone.

Sadly he offered me numerous Caribbean chips which I politely turned down. Back in those days I was only interested in Vegas chips. Then he showed me 3 books of his various Vegas and Caribbean sample casino chips. I was awestruck of the chips he had. I immediately asked him if he would sell them to me. I made him a very large offer for the chips, he refused. I have been looking for those books ever since. 35+ years later, I'm still looking for them. I just know their still out there somewhere. Every year at the convention I keep hoping someone is going to walk in with them.

Regarding the $2.50 Desert Inn chips 1 week after my visit with Slim I took 4 boxes of the chips to the Long Beach Coin show. Sold 2 boxes to Doug Saito and 2 boxes to Charlie Rogers.