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Atlantic City Newsletter

by Archie Black

Atlantic City Newsletter by Archie Black, Oct/Nov, 1999


The following is a copy of "Mr. Chips'" most recent "Atlantic City Newsletter" that accompanies each of his New Issues Service of Atlantic City mailings of casino chips and gaming tokens to his many faithful subscribers.

Titanic Revisited
While the awesome Titanic exhibition at Tropicana has long been closed and all the related paraphenalia dismantled and removed from the property... and the gift shop associated with the exhibition has also closed.... the Titanic theme lives on. Trop has installed an island of ten slot machines which dispenses tickets for players to collect and redeem for attractive heavy bronze commemorative medallions with Titantic themed designs. The “sign” on the left, is sometimes posted on top of each of the ten specially equipped slot machines. The signs do disappear quite frequently as a result of souvenir hunters removing them from their lucite holders. Now for the “catch” ... so pay close attention.

For every 100 coins or credits played through the .25¢ slot machine ($25.00 in play action), ONE ticket is issued, via a dispenser located on the side of each slot machine..... similar to Skillo tickets in a kiddie arcade. It takes FORTY tickets to be redeemed for ONE commemorative “token” as they are called. Forty tickets times $25 in slot action per ticket, comes to $1,000 in quarters played to accumulate enough tickets for ONE “token”! To complicate matters further, there are FOUR different “medallions”, as I prefer to call them. To add insult to injury, read the fine print at the bottom of Titanic Slots rules as published to the left. If un-readable, it states, “Slot cashback will not be earned on Titanic slot machines.” I guess Trop management figures they are giving enough back to players in the way of these “tokens” so they are not obligated to give any additional credit for your $1000 and up slot play! No; I don’t claim to have played thousands of dollars in order to redeem enough tickets to offer these medallions to my subscribers.

To be perfectly up-front with all of you... I have spent litterally close to a hundred hours or more over past several long weekends to accumulate tickets left behind by day-trippers who didn’t realize there were tickets left in the dispenser... or knew what they were used for.... or after they found out they needed 200 tickets for a boxed set of four medallions, they simply gave their tickets to me.

Now, to the bottom line. I have a very limited supply of tickets to redeem for these medallions. Not knowing in advance which specific medallions some of my subscribers may want, or how many requests I’ll receive, I’ve not redeemed my several groups of accumulated forty tickets yet. I’m assuming that the most popular design requested will be the dramatic one of the ship sinking.

I’ll redeem my tickets at the promotions booth for the corresponding Titanic medal want-list developed. Price is $20 per medal, pre-paid, (your choice) ... or $75 for a matched serially numbered set of all four medals in a hinged custom presentation case. The four designs are; Titanic Underway At Sea; Captain E.J. Smith; Titanic First Class Grand Staircase; and Titanic Tragedy At Sea. I can’t promise that I’ll have enough tickets to redeem for medals for every request, so this will be strictly on a first-come first-served basis until I run out of tix..... or until the slot machine ticket promo is withdrawn from play.

NOW ON TO LATE CHIP NEWS
Claridge (fast becoming known as the “chip issuing factory of the east”) has issued four commemorative Halloween chips with little fanfare or prior announcement. I’m happy to report that we have a few chippers-in-the-know who are employed at the Claridge who occassionally keep some of us informed as to what chips are being released and when. Most chippers who showed up to purchase the new Halloween chip on Friday were expecting a single design with possibly a $5 and $10 denomination, as has become the policy at Claridge. No one was prepared for TWO different designs in both $5 & $10 denominations. As a result, most chippers were blind-sided as their wallets emptied rapidly and had to make quick runs to the ATM machines for more cash. Unfortunately, my MAC card only has a $400 limit per day on cash withdrawals. Luckily, my Sovereign Bank in Brick has a branch in Absecon, about ten miles outside of Atlantic City, where I was able to replenish my quickly exhausted cash on hand which allowed me to purchase this issue.

I have very little else in the way of new chips to report on.... as not too much has happened since the Miss America issues... and now Halloween. Can a Thanksgiving chip be in the offering for the future? Blondie is still on hold at Trump Marina... I hear that the reason is because a signed release from Blondie had not been obtained in advance of the chips being manufactured. However, the attractive roulette series there is becoming more and more popular (and the last few colors are more difficult) for collectors to obtain.

MORE NEW .50¢ A.C. TOKENS
Trump Plaza and Trump Taj Mahal have issued new .50¢ slot tokens in the past couple of weeks. There are presently four A.C. casinos that now have switched over from using U.S. Kennedy half dollars to a fifty cent house token. Trump Marina and Claridge had made the switch to .50¢ tokens a few months ago and all were sent out to my token subscribers earlier.

STEVE WYNN’s PROGRESS
The “Brigantine Connector” as it is being politically called (more commonly referred to as; “the tunnel”, .......... or “the driveway to Steve Wynn’s property”) is progressing very rapidly. The approaches to the overpasses presently under construction on Route 30 are taking shape, as are the new inner roadways into the Marina District.

Have a Very Happy Thanksgiving and happy chip & token collecting,
Archie

BULLETIN.....BULLETIN.....

I had just put this issue of my A.C. Newsletter to bed.... ready to go to Staples with the paste-ups first thing in the morning to run of on their copy machine (or so I thought) when I received word late Sunday night that Trump Marina had issued the final high denomination tokens ($10, $25, $50, $100) to complete their new tokens series; replacing all the old Trump Castle tokens. Wanting to get these tokens out into this mailing, I drove back to A.C. around 1:00 a.m. early Monday morning to pick up the needed Marina tokens. They look pretty nice when shiny and new without any dings or bag marks?

Happy collecting,
Archie

"When the chips are down, you can bet "Mr. Chips" will be there to pick them up."


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