Vegas Collections: Michael James, the Evolution of the Collection
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that we’ve gotten to the unorganized chip collection because my family STILL has not gotten me a frame for which to display my collection (a la Sailordude), for which I’ve only been dropping hints since the day I started it. But with Christmas coming, there’s still hope.
The truth is, though, I never set out to collect chips. Actually, I never set out to make a Vegas collection. But 26 years after my first trip in 1989, I’ve amassed quite a bit of stuff – and a lot of memories to go with it.
My first trip to Las Vegas was in July 1989. Besides the fact that it was like vacationing in a furnace, I was a wide-eyed 21-year old without a lot of money and an unrealistic five days in which to kill.
My friend and I decided that sitting through a time share presentation would not only kill time during the day but would get us free tickets to a Frank Marino La Cage show at the Riviera at night. A bonus was a take-home item of a piece of luggage (zzzzzz) or the above dice clock. To me, that just screamed, “LAS VEGAS” and I had to have it. Three weeks later the relationship was over, but I still have the clock!
Due to family and finances, Las Vegas eluded me for quite awhile, but I made my return in October 2005 for our honeymoon. I combined honeymoon with a business trip as a way to get my employer to cover the cost of the Sahara hotel (that’s a pro tip, by the way).
I am not sure why, but I made sure to take the hotel magazine with me as a souvenir.
I am sure that we have a lot of “stuff” from that trip, as we saw the Tournament of Kings at the Excalibur, saw Mamma Mia! at the Mandalay Bay, went on a brunch cruise on Lake Mead, as well as other tourist activities. The problem is that I can’t find any of the ticket stubs or receipts from those events. But it seems like that same What’s On room magazine is in every box I open. I think I’ve seen that magazine more than I’ve seen my kid’s report cards.
As an aside, when I photographed the magazine, I decided to thumb through it, and it is a veritable time capsule of closed hotels, restaurants, and shows. But one advert caught my eye…
Talk about someone that doesn’t age well. The Don Rickles I saw in concert at the Potawatomi Casino in Milwaukee was a sad sight.
We also took a number of photos in 2005, and of course, we needed a frame for the best picture of the lot.
Never in 10 years did I imagine the changes that would take place on the north Strip., Kinda like an alternate-reality Back to the Future, the picture stays intact while everything else disappears.
On my honeymoon, we went to the M&M’s World and the World of Coca-Cola Store. I didn’t buy anything, but my wife had purchased a set of utensils. The way the utensils are designed, the metal part of each utensil is attached to a plastic base. Once home, about the second time she used them while cutting something soft (like an On-Cor Salisbury Steak patty) with the fork, the metal snapped right off of the plastic. Shortly after this happened, we had a family friend go to Las Vegas, and she was kind enough to pick up TWO of these sets of utensils for her. My wife quickly broke both of those forks, too.
After not visiting Las Vegas for 16 years, my third trip was just three short months later, when two buddies and I stayed at the Stardust and watched Super Bowl XL.
We also walked back to the M&M’s World and the World of Coca-Cola Store
Me – trying to be a nice guy and all – bought yet another set of M&M’s utensils on this Stardust trip.
She was so excited that she celebrated by keeping them in that cylinder. Sealed. I think that was the beginning of the end of the honeymoon.
While with my buddies and still browsing these stores, I saw this…
As soon as I saw it, I knew it must be mine. ‘Twas a little tricky, however, carrying it onto a full, four-hour red eye flight. I was starting to get the feeling that this town was made for me, and that I’d have more opportunities for more souvenirs.
In May 2007, I was scheduled to bowl in a tournament in Reno, but my wife and I had been discussing the fact that there are so many things to do in Las Vegas that you can never run out. Sounded to me like she was itching for a return, and who was I to stop her? There was a catch, though. She made it clear that this was not a gambling trip (I could do that in Reno) but the day and a half in Vegas was intended to be tourists.
We did a pretty good job of it, too. We went to the top of the replica Eiffel Tower at Paris Las Vegas and went on a gondola ride at the Venetian. After dinner, we also had the choice between the Mirage volcano and the Sirens of TI show at Treasure Island, and like any good tourist, we chose incorrectly. We went to TI, stood outside and waited for the show to start, and less than five minutes before “go” time, they announced that it was canceled due to high winds. Unfortunately, there was no time to get over to the Mirage.
We didn’t take a lot of time for souvenir shopping, but we each grabbed something.
But I remember thinking at the time that I was running out of souvenirs to buy. After one previous lifetime trip, I’d been to Las Vegas three times in 18 months. How much more crap do I need?
Fast forward to April 2009, and the national bowling tournament was held in Las Vegas. Earlier that winter, my favorite parents announced that they were coming along.
They had never been, and I was kind of excited to show off “My Town”. One of the many activities we chose was The Rat Pack is Back show at the Plaza.
We were there for five days, and other than bowling related souvenirs, neither my wife nor I bought a thing. Part of the reason is that we were running out of places to display everything.
So allow me to take a quick step back. In 2008, the national bowling tournament was in Albuquerque, NM. On our last evening before flying home, we went to the Route 66 Casino in Rio Puerco. I bought into a craps game and lost the fastest $146 ever (well, for me at least). How do I know it was $146?
That money went so fast that I grabbed the remaining chips in disgust and stomped out of there.
As long as we’re going backward, let’s go back one more year to that 2007 trip. After the Las Vegas portion, we spent a few days in Reno.
I know we stayed at the Circus Circus, but I don’t recall how this stray chip ended up back home with me. This just got tossed on the dresser at home, and I just assumed that I’d use it the next time I was scheduled to bowl in Reno.
When our poker group began our mostly-annual trek to Las Vegas in November 2009, we were going to cram poker into just about every corner of the weekend. That was fine with me, as I had run out of interest in looking for and procuring tchotchkes.
And then the thought struck me. We had hoped to hit six or seven poker tournaments, and on top of that we were staying downtown and would, therefore, be casino hopping. For one measly dollar, I could get a branded souvenir from each casino! But I needed to make a ground-rule; I decided that I had to gamble in a casino to get a chip.
With that, an obsession was born.
Since that fateful day in 2009, I have gambled in 90 different casinos. That may seem like a lot (well, it is a lot) but once you realize that I’ve been to Reno four times since then, Vegas 10 times, plus numerous casinos in the upper-Midwest, suddenly it doesn’t seem like a lot (well, it is a lot).
Without a display case (*ahem* YET, Mom… Dad… Wendy Jo… anyone?) they all reside in a Ziplock bag in my bedroom. It does allow me to sort them like an 8-year old and his baseball cards (which I’ve also collected… wanna see?) As long as we’re waxing nostalgic, one of my favorite sorts is of casinos that are now closed or renamed.
The 13 casinos are…
- Top row – Harrah’s St. Louis, Harrah’s Tunica
- Second row – Siena Casino Reno, Montbleu Lake Tahoe
- Third row – (all Las Vegas) Fitzgeralds, Las Vegas Club, Terribles, Las Vegas Hilton
- Bottom row – (all Las Vegas) Stardust, Sahara, O’Sheas, Imperial Palace, Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall
I did cheat slightly with the Stardust chip, having bought it on Ebay. However, I had gambled there so to me it still counts.
So there is a representation of my Las Vegas collectibles from a dice clock to a Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall chip. What’s in your collection?
[Photos and Images: Michael James]
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Michael James is a true Vegas Nerd. First falling in love after hearing details of an aunt’s visit in the ’70s, and nurtured when the gambling bug hit as casinos started opening on every street corner across the country in the ’90s. When not reading Vegas blogs and message boards, he’s a metals buyer by day and a competitive bowler by night in Milwaukee.
5 thoughts on “Vegas Collections: Michael James, the Evolution of the Collection”
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im 6 years in for my yearly trips and I have are souvenir cups :-( that get thrown out mostly. I need to do better.
The best souvenir would be a W2G, but I’ve never gotten one of those from Vegas!
Michael…thanks for sharing your collection and the stories behind it. Great read! Being in Kenosha, we get to Potawatomi quite often, and had thoughts of going to see Don Rickles when he was there, but was not willing to pay those prices! Guess I didn’t miss much, eh? Or was he still great despite his looks?
I had a big win at Potawatomi and I used the winnings for Don Rickles tickets. As someone who had always wanted to see him, GOING to the show was as important as the quality of the show.
But it was about 70 minutes long and had numerous TV clips of the good ol’ days (which were hilarious). He only had a handful of scripted bits, not particularly racist, but they were fine. He only stood up once, just to show how bad he looked and to ask the audience ostensibly for permission to stay seated. He talked about the flesh-eating bacteria that cost him most of his leg strength, went on about his mother and Frank Sinatra and led a toast to both, and talked about his penis a lot (calling him “Spiderman” or “Spidey”).
When he did jab at an audience member, he said about each one “You’ve been great. Get him a bottle of champagne, the good stuff on me” which is pretty much one of his lines as Billy Sherbert in casino.
I saw Buck Wild at the Sahara. My wife and I, and 10 other people were there. It wasn’t a bad show and didn’t need to be topless. It closed shortly after.