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Originally Posted by mrreality68
Nice problem to have back then
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It is kind of like collecting old coins or currency. A $100 silver certificate is actually still worth $100 straight up if you actually went to use it at a store. A $1 silver certificate would only be worth $1 at the store. So you already had a built in price differential just from the value of the currency itself. Plus, fewer $100 silver certificates are likely still around as compared to $1 ones, so you'd also have a rarity factor adding to the collectible value difference.
And casino chips were just a substitute for actual money used by the casinos that originally issued them. So like actual currency, you'd expect fewer large denomination chips to have been created than those of lower denomination chips, and thus expect fewer larger denomination chips would still around today.
One huge difference between chips and currency is that when a casino closed, the chips they issued would lose their intrinsic monetary value since you couldn't cash them in for money anymore. But at the same time, someone wanting to keep a momemento from a Vegas trip would be much more likely to hang on to a $10 chip than say a $!,000 chip. So the rarity of higher value chips from closed casinos surviving till today was further enhanced. Not cashing chips in before a casino closed would be like throwing money away.
Interesting fact. Back when gambling and casinos were pretty much only legal in Neveda, I believe it was the state's commission that oversaw all the in-state casinos and somewhat monitered the chip production. As such, each and every chip issued by all the Neveda casinos had to have a completely unique chip pattern and/or color scheme. That was another way back then to help insure you couldn't take chips from one casino and get away with using them at another. Since they've opened up gambling and casinos pretty much around the entire country, not sure if there is some national register still requing this for all casinos now. I'm guessing the casinos nowadays at least clearly mark their names, and probably locations as well, on their chips to differentiate them from those of all other casinos.