Selling off duplicates

[Yarm]

What could be a more harmless pursuit? That's what I thought when I picked out the duplicate $10 silver casino strikes from my collection. I was heading to Las Vegas with a buddy and figured to generate a little "mad money" by flitting from casino to casino cashing in these extra pieces along the way.

 

All went well until we hit the Hilton about midnight. What was a quick and easy transaction at the cashier's box at all the previous casinos seemed to be taking a very long time. The staff had drifted off as well and I thought we might be in the middle of a shift change when hotel security asked us to "step this way"! We showed ID and answered a lot of questions about ourselves before we were allowed to leave after 1am with the following explanation. "The token you cashed was an obsolete one. The entire stock of those old tokens disappeared from the casino a few years back and we have been waiting for someone to start cashing them in a bit at a time." The implication was that it had been an inside job and since we had no connection to the hotel or criminal records, off we went.

 

I still have one of those obsolete tokens. Any of you folks staying at the Las Vegas Hilton?

[cpm9ball]

Las Vegas casinos do tend to have a long memory. I'm glad that you didn't get caught up in it.

 

Unfortunately, it looks as though you may have lost money on the deal. Silver Strikes are very collectable and you could have realized as much as 50% profit over face for each one. There are quite a few CC&GTCC dealers in Las Vegas and some of them may have offered you less, but 50% over face is common.

 

Chris

[EZ_E]

Yeah, cashing them in at face value seems a little harsh. I have a few from the Luxor and think that they are pretty cool. There isn't much of a market for them at present but that could always change, especially with you obsolete one. It is scarce with a story so I'd hang onto that puppy for awhile.

 

I wonder what the casino does with them once they are redeemed?

[Yarm]

Apparently, we overtipped the strippers as well!

[cpm9ball]

I wonder what the casino does with them once they are redeemed?

 

One of my pool-playing buddies has a son who works at one of the Vegas casinos. It is my understanding they just stash them away with other obsolete chips and tokens (some of the casinos even accept chips from other casinos), and every so often they sell them to the chip & token dealers.

 

Chris