History guru question (1 Viewer)

[pathetic]

Hello. I created this account for this specific question. I am at my friend's who is big into gambling, history, collectables, and buying and selling all kinds of things. My/our issue is specifically poker chip history related. He recently acquired an old black jack table from the Stardust. Along with it he obtained a lot of different chips (all old). I spent a lot of time value searching them and came across a set that is quite interesting and has yielded no answers.

It is a blue $1 chip that on the back says "Sahara Club" with 3 stars in between those 2 words. Using google lense I came across interesting results. Roughly 5 or more have the exact same color and the $1 side of the chip's design were found. Identical in fact. But each result was from a different poker club in California and each had their own "logo" on the other side of the chip. Most of those results were different cities in California and around 1964. Of all of these results and searching further, we never found the exact one we physically have (Sahara Club). That is what confuses us.

We deduced many casinos (ex: Las Vegas) allow a casino imprinted chip to hold the same value at other casinos. We assume that's due to same city. These are odd because they all have exact same chip material, color, and design on one side and are used at several different cities (poker clubs).

What we are curious about is why? We cannot find a history description. We suspect the Sahara was the parent of all these lower poker clubs and they mass printed the same $1 blue chip and let each place put their own logo on the other side.

I provided screenshots of the chip(s) we have and the other identical ones in search results. The one in my hand is the actual one, he has lots of them but cannot find anything about them online. I'm sure the value of them is low, but due to no information found, if someone could also post value of them would be appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[Eriks]

@BGinGA

 

[djsLV]

No idea on value but they are on Chip Guide as being attributed to Sahara Dunes in Elsinore, CA. There is a yellow $5 chip as well with the same stamp.

http://chipguide.themogh.org/cg_chip2.php?id=CAELSD

 

[BGinGA]

T.R.King produced small crown mold clay chips for a number of card rooms and casinos, many in California. Most were hot-stamped, either by TRK or by one of several gaming equipment distributors that often bought chips from TRK and then sold them to card rooms or other end users.

It is/was not unusual to have chips destined to be used by different unrelated locations share hot-stamping dies for denomination markings (which were provided and used by the chip's manufacturer or seller).

 

[ekricket]

. It is/was not unusual to have chips destined to be used by different locations share hot-stamping dies for denomination markings (which were provided and used by the chip's manufacturer or seller).

Dies aren’t cheap, so this makes a lot of sense. Lots of smaller cardrooms probably didn’t want to spend the extra cash so they went with some kind of “stock” die.

I do the same kinda, if you pay for the die then it’s yours and I’ll send it with the chips. If I pay for it then I keep it and use it if needed or desired by me, and I don’t charge a fee to use my stock ones.

 

[JWC]

Specific to one of the original questions, I don’t believe the card rooms in question shared ownership. It was the use of semi standardized colors, and a common denomination die.

 

[allforcharity]

Yeah, there was probably very little choice back then on what base colours/formulae were available, as well as very simple edge spot patterns.