Why are some casino racks from the 1970s "missing" $1 issued chips? (1 Viewer)

[FDLmold]

I was going through some old junk last week. I found two Eisenhower dollars. I weighed them, and figured out they were the kind that had 40% silver content, so worth about $10 each. Yay me!

Part of my research into the coins led to this tidbit about the Eisenhower dollars.

"Even so, it was successful in quickly replacing private-issue tokens in Nevada casinos. According to numismatist Randy Camper, over 70% of "circulating" Eisenhower dollars were used in casinos."

From 1971 to 1978, the US Mint minted over 500 million of the regular Eisenhowers (not proof, no silver content). So there were plenty around to stock every casino in Nevada and then some. Shy Clown opened about 1974 or so, and had no $1 chips in either of its chip racks all the way up until it closed in 1981. Pick Hobson's Riverside opened in 1978 and never issued a $1 chip. Those are the two that come to mind.

It is interesting that both had small crown chips. TRK was still quite prominent in issuing chips for Nevada casinos in the 1970s. I doubt TRK suggested to casinos that they just use Eisenhowers for $1 chips instead of small crowns, but they couldn't prevent a casino from doing that either. A lot of TRK set makers in this forum often gnash their teeth at the lack of $1 small crown chips that are out there. Blame the Eisenhowers!

 

[HaRDHouSeiNC]

I was going through some old junk last week. I found two Eisenhower dollars. I weighed them, and figured out they were the kind that had 40% silver content, so worth about $10 each. Yay me!

Part of my research into the coins led to this tidbit about the Eisenhower dollars.

"Even so, it was successful in quickly replacing private-issue tokens in Nevada casinos. According to numismatist Randy Camper, over 70% of "circulating" Eisenhower dollars were used in casinos."

From 1971 to 1978, the US Mint minted over 500 million of the regular Eisenhowers (not proof, no silver content). So there were plenty around to stock every casino in Nevada and then some. Shy Clown opened about 1974 or so, and had no $1 chips in either of its chip racks all the way up until it closed in 1981. Pick Hobson's Riverside opened in 1978 and never issued a $1 chip. Those are the two that come to mind.

It is interesting that both had small crown chips. TRK was still quite prominent in issuing chips for Nevada casinos in the 1970s. I doubt TRK suggested to casinos that they just use Eisenhowers for $1 chips instead of small crowns, but they couldn't prevent a casino from doing that either. A lot of TRK set makers in this forum often gnash their teeth at the lack of $1 small crown chips that are out there. Blame the Eisenhowers!

Buying a $1 token at face was cheaper than a TRK chip?
I can’t believe that in the 60s/70s

Odd

 

[FDLmold]

Buying a $1 token at face was cheaper than a TRK chip?
I can’t believe that in the 60s/70s

Odd

Your math is wrong. They went to the bank and got 10,000 coins for $10,000, which were worth $10,000 anywhere, in the casino or not. That cost is essentially zero.

 

[Okku]

Hmmm I never thought about this before until now. This is very interesting. This should make Nevada $1 TRKs more popular and obviously "harder to find" in a sense. The other thing we could think about too could be that many casinos did use the $1 tokens as an alternative. Although towards the 60s/70s you'd expect places to have $1 chips if you were going to play on the tables. That could be possible. Would make sense at Pick Hobson's Riverside because it went 50cent-$5-$25-$100.

 

[Okku]

Buying a $1 token at face was cheaper than a TRK chip?
I can’t believe that in the 60s/70s

Odd

Most of the time and even today, producing the chips is cheaper than $1 and a big piece of why many casinos don't mind if you walk out with some or even racks. As long as you do pay face value they are making some type of money.

 

[Lil Tuna]

No expert here but I’ll give this a shot. I believe in the example of Pick Hobson’s Riverside Casino, it was a matter of Pick Hobson being spread too thin and a way to save some $ by not having a $1 chip made.
To my understanding, Pick Hobson died a broke man and was said to have too many things going on at the same time to run a successful and profitable gaming establishment.
Despite all that, the Pick Hobson Riverside chips are some of my favorite vintage Reno casino chips. The .50 frac alone is one of the nicest TRK fracs ever. Honestly, who needs a $1 chip if you can ante up a couple of these beauties?

 

[Okku]

No expert here but I’ll give this a shot. I believe in the example of Pick Hobson’s Riverside Casino, it was a matter of Pick Hobson being spread too thin and a way to save some $ by not having a $1 chip made.
To my understanding, Pick Hobson died a broke man and was said to have too many things going on at the same time to run a successful and profitable gaming establishment.
Despite all that, the Pick Hobson Riverside chips are some of my favorite vintage Reno casino chips. The .50 frac alone is one of the nicest TRK fracs ever. Honestly, who needs a $1 chip if you can ante up a couple of these beauties? View attachment 799452View attachment 799453

That could be very very true!

 

[Lil Tuna]

That could be very very true!

Find out for us @Okku, your the guy when it comes to this stuff. I know for certain Pick Hobson died broke sometime in the 1990s. He ran the Riverside from 78-86 before it went out of business.

 

[RivieraDanny]

No expert here but I’ll give this a shot. I believe in the example of Pick Hobson’s Riverside Casino, it was a matter of Pick Hobson being spread too thin and a way to save some $ by not having a $1 chip made.
To my understanding, Pick Hobson died a broke man and was said to have too many things going on at the same time to run a successful and profitable gaming establishment.
Despite all that, the Pick Hobson Riverside chips are some of my favorite vintage Reno casino chips. The .50 frac alone is one of the nicest TRK fracs ever. Honestly, who needs a $1 chip if you can ante up a couple of these beauties? View attachment 799452View attachment 799453

Pick used a dollar metal token instead of a chip. Worked for slots and tables. I have a rack of them in the token pile! @Ben8257 can confirm.

 

[Lil Tuna]

Pick used a dollar metal token instead of a chip. Worked for slots and tables. I have a rack of them in the token pile! @Ben8257 can confirm.

Would love to see those sometime @RivieraDanny.

 

[HaRDHouSeiNC]

Pick used a dollar metal token instead of a chip. Worked for slots and tables. I have a rack of them in the token pile! @Ben8257 can confirm.

I think those things must be pure brass too

Probably worth more melted down than as a token

 

[HaRDHouSeiNC]

Would love to see those sometime @RivieraDanny.

Pick used a dollar metal token instead of a chip. Worked for slots and tables. I have a rack of them in the token pile! @Ben8257 can confirm.

Sorry I was thinking Nevada Club

Not sure I’ve ever seen those either

 

[HaRDHouSeiNC]

No expert here but I’ll give this a shot. I believe in the example of Pick Hobson’s Riverside Casino, it was a matter of Pick Hobson being spread too thin and a way to save some $ by not having a $1 chip made.
To my understanding, Pick Hobson died a broke man and was said to have too many things going on at the same time to run a successful and profitable gaming establishment.
Despite all that, the Pick Hobson Riverside chips are some of my favorite vintage Reno casino chips. The .50 frac alone is one of the nicest TRK fracs ever. Honestly, who needs a $1 chip if you can ante up a couple of these beauties? View attachment 799452View attachment 799453

Those blue need to be milled and labeled.
Perfect substitute.

 

[Lil Tuna]

Those blue need to be milled and labeled.
Perfect substitute.

I have wrestled with that for awhile. I think they are the perfect candidate for a PH $1 label. I struggle with murdering history even if they are cancelled chips.

 

[RivieraDanny]

Sorry I was thinking Nevada Club

Not sure I’ve ever seen those either

 

[Lil Tuna]

View attachment 799477View attachment 799478

Those are sweet Danny! Really cool.

 

[FDLmold]

Pick opened in 1978. That's the last year of Eisenhowers being minted. They could have easily started with some Eisenhowers, then went to tokens after the US Mint discontinued putting Eisenhowers into circulation. There is almost no chance Pick would have opened without some sort of $1 chip or token. It had to be one of the most common bets at that time in Reno in a casino that size.

 

[gmunny]

Pick used a dollar metal token instead of a chip. Worked for slots and tables. I have a rack of them in the token pile! @Ben8257 can confirm.

Danny is correct. I believe that is the primary reason that may casinos in that time era did not have $1s (or only small quantities have been found).

I went to Vegas a lot in my late teens/early 20s (early 1980s, mainly downtown) and most places almost always used $1 tokens or dollars for both Slots and Black Jack. Lots of $2 tables back then. Why order $1 chips if you have a bunch of tokens for slots. I think the only time I recall seeing $1 chips were on craps and if the place had a poker room (though I only recall seeing poker at the Horseshoe and Union Plaza back then).

You may also find places had more $1 chips in the 60s as many of the places that were using silver dollars at the time and those were being removed for their silver content, which led to the Casinos minting their own tokens in the mid to late 60s until the Eisenhower dollar came out.

 

[JWC]

Often, casinos received their tokens for free, so why buy chips? Do you know why they were free?

 

[Easylife]

Found this thread a really interesting read so far. Amazing the knowledge you can pick up on here

 

[RivieraDanny]

Often, casinos received their tokens for free, so why buy chips? Do you know why they were free?

WHY WHY WHY?????

 

[Kain8]

Krish's collecting started even earlier than I thought.....

 

[FDLmold]

Found this thread a really interesting read so far. Amazing the knowledge you can pick up on here

There used to be a lot of good information on chiptalk (the blue wall, the original PCF before PCF), until it all went away.

 

[gmunny]

Often, casinos received their tokens for free, so why buy chips? Do you know why they were free?

Did they get a royalty from the Minting company for sales of Proof or near-proof sets that were sold to collectors? I think I have the 65 Franklin Proof set and a bunch of other singles. Not sure how much they were originally sold for.

 

[JWC]

Did they get a royalty from the Minting company for sales of Proof or near-proof sets that were sold to collectors? I think I have the 65 Franklin Proof set and a bunch of other singles. Not sure how much they were originally sold for.

Bingo!

For example, they might need 10,000 $1 tokens for a cost of 20c each ($2,000).

To offset it, Franklin mint would stamp 300 - $5 tokens ($1,500), 300 50c tokens ($150), and 350 extra $1 tokens.

No upfront cost to the casino, but they could be stuck on the redemption end.

 

[puglia82]

found a vintage pic from Harold's Club in Reno, this 3d came up in my mind
How many tokens in the tray....