The Little Club (Rosamond, CA TRKs) (1 Viewer)

[Split]

I’ve had this small set of TRKs for 10 years now, but I don’t think I’ve posted them before. The chips are not particularly remarkable in any way, but I have a geographic connection with their cardroom. These chips are from The Little Club in Rosamond, CA. Rosamond cardrooms have brought us some great chips, like Wilbur’s Players Club. Rosamond is a small community in Kern County that has had a disproportional number of cardrooms for its small population. The community is right on the border of Los Angeles County, so I assume that the Rosamond cardrooms existed to cater to the Los Angeles crowd. Outside of Gardena, no other cities in Los Angeles County allowed poker until Bell legalized poker in 1980, which likely made Rosamond the closest place for “legal” cardrooms for many Los Angeles residents. Rosamond only has one cardroom today, and it is still the closest cardroom for hundreds of thousands of residents in nearby Los Angeles County communities.

I hosted my first home poker game in Rosamond, and I lived there when I discovered that there are better chips out there than super diamonds. One of my players told me to look up Paulsons, and that’s how I discovered ChipTalk. It was downhill from there as I learned about the many great chipsets and chipmakers out there. I enjoy these chips simply because they have Rosamond included on the hotstamp. It’s not a strong connection, but it’s something.

It wasn’t until the TRK chip order card got uploaded to ChipGuide just under two weeks ago that I realized the name of the club is The Little Club. When looking at the chips, I read “Little Rosamond Club” in my head, and I think the ChipGuide’s name used to agree. Having the correct name allowed me to find this colorful article about the first shuttle landing at Edwards AFB, where the reporter interviewed a few people in the “Little Club Café” in Rosamond:

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/0...o-big-deal-for-little-Rosamond/9434355726800/

My favorite part of the article is a quote from the club’s bartender Rosemary Downs, who said, “We're no different from any other town, except a little more sin and gambling.” If I ever make a dealer button for this set, that quote is definitely going on it. On a more personal note, I witnessed the last shuttle to ever land at Edwards AFB, and let’s just say that the final shuttle to land there drew nowhere near the same crowd that the first one did.

A rack of quarters, a rack of fives, and a barrel of ones does not exactly make a playable set. Fortunately, many California cardrooms used the same solid colors, and have the matching denomination hotstamp on one side. I have enough ones from other cardrooms to make a mixed California cardroom TRK set playable for low stakes, but I haven’t really obtained higher denomination chips in any quantity. There were a thousand each of the quarters, ones, and fives ordered, so maybe I’ll find some more out there someday. There were also 300 of the $20 chips made, but I haven’t been able to find any of those.

Now it’s time for the pics. The chips aren’t much to look at, but I appreciate them for what they are:

 

[joeyshin]

@Okku

 

[Okku]

Amazing piece of history right there! Thanks for sharing!!

 

[Split]

I happened to be in Rosamond last week, and while I was there I figured I'd take a picture of the former Little Club:

The Chip Guide includes a listing from the 1963 Kern County Yellow Pages that places the Little Club at 2969 Hwy 6 in Rosamond. In 1964, the southern portion of US 6 lost its official status as US 6, and this stretch is currently known as Sierra Highway. This location is consistent with the description of the location of the Little Club in the article I linked above. Kern County assessor records show that this building was constructed in 1960, so this building would be the same one that was there when the Little Club operated. Based on this information, I think this is most likely where the Little Club was located.

When I lived in Rosamond, the building was part of a car dealership. When I was in town earlier this year, the building was unoccupied. It seems that it became a boxing gym sometime within the last few months. The building itself is completely unremarkable, but it is situated in near what was the intersection of the main north-south and east-west thoroughfares at the time.

On a tangential note, the town of Rosamond is located an hour and a half (or more depending on traffic) from Hollywood, and the town and surrounding areas wind up in TV shows, movies, and commercials from time to time. I even had the opportunity to be an extra in a film while I lived there, which was a fun experience. Getting back on topic, some scenes in Ocean's Thirteen were filmed in Rosamond. Some websites claim that the dice factory scenes were filmed in Rosamond, although I have no knowledge about the specific location. However, there's another scene that takes place right across the street from the former Little Club, in this gem of a building:

This was the diner where Bobby Caldwell retrieved his two fellow agents (or con artists? I'm not clear on their status) to head to the casino to bust Livingston. The place was called The Skillet. In the movie, the agents were the only customers in there. I ate there once, and true to the film, we were the only customers. The service was slow and the food was terrible, so I was not surprised when the place went out of business. Continental breakfasts in hotels are better than what I had here. A pizza place I like relocated there, and I did frequent the pizza place. The pizza place has since moved across town, and in maybe late 2021 or early 2022 this place had a fire. When I was in town earlier this year, it hadn't been boarded up yet, and the sign in front was the old sign for The Skillet for some reason. The sign is gone now, and I have no idea what will happen to the place.

I realize this isn't exactly groundbreaking research, but hopefully someone will enjoy a little bit of the small town flavor and somewhat tangential connections to our hobby.

 

[warma]

So awesome. Love the connection and the history there. Wonderful find, I hope you find more.

 

[Okku]

I happened to be in Rosamond last week, and while I was there I figured I'd take a picture of the former Little Club:

View attachment 940683


The Chip Guide includes a listing from the 1963 Kern County Yellow Pages that places the Little Club at 2969 Hwy 6 in Rosamond. In 1964, the southern portion of US 6 lost its official status as US 6, and this stretch is currently known as Sierra Highway. This location is consistent with the description of the location of the Little Club in the article I linked above. Kern County assessor records show that this building was constructed in 1960, so this building would be the same one that was there when the Little Club operated. Based on this information, I think this is most likely where the Little Club was located.

When I lived in Rosamond, the building was part of a car dealership. When I was in town earlier this year, the building was unoccupied. It seems that it became a boxing gym sometime within the last few months. The building itself is completely unremarkable, but it is situated in near what was the intersection of the main north-south and east-west thoroughfares at the time.

On a tangential note, the town of Rosamond is located an hour and a half (or more depending on traffic) from Hollywood, and the town and surrounding areas wind up in TV shows, movies, and commercials from time to time. I even had the opportunity to be an extra in a film while I lived there, which was a fun experience. Getting back on topic, some scenes in Ocean's Thirteen were filmed in Rosamond. Some websites claim that the dice factory scenes were filmed in Rosamond, although I have no knowledge about the specific location. However, there's another scene that takes place right across the street from the former Little Club, in this gem of a building:

View attachment 940693


This was the diner where Bobby Caldwell retrieved his two fellow agents (or con artists? I'm not clear on their status) to head to the casino to bust Livingston. The place was called The Skillet. In the movie, the agents were the only customers in there. I ate there once, and true to the film, we were the only customers. The service was slow and the food was terrible, so I was not surprised when the place went out of business. Continental breakfasts in hotels are better than what I had here. A pizza place I like relocated there, and I did frequent the pizza place. The pizza place has since moved across town, and in maybe late 2021 or early 2022 this place had a fire. When I was in town earlier this year, it hadn't been boarded up yet, and the sign in front was the old sign for The Skillet for some reason. The sign is gone now, and I have no idea what will happen to the place.

I realize this isn't exactly ground breaking research, but hopefully someone will enjoy a little bit of the small town flavor and somewhat tangential connections to our hobby.

This is amazing! Thanks for documenting this and letting us know more information about Rosamond and the Little Club!