Jessie Beck's Riverside (Reno) and the TRK Riverside chip set
A trader on a collector forum recently listed a 500-chip leaded TRK set labelled "Jessie Beck's Riverside" among sets he would swap for scarce quarter-denomination chips.1 The name points to a real hotel and casino in Reno, Nevada. What the forum post does not say is whether this set was issued by the casino or made later as a collector set, and that distinction matters if you are trying to build a collection of genuine house chips.
In this guide
The venue
The Riverside Hotel stood on the Truckee River in downtown Reno. According to a Nevada historic-property listing, Jessie Beck acquired it in 1971 and operated it as Jessie Beck's Riverside. She sold it in 1978 to Harrah's Entertainment, which partnered with "Pick" Hobson on the Overland Casino, and the facility closed in 1986 during Hobson's management. Canadian businessman Peter Ng bought the property in 1989, and in 2000 Artspace, a Minneapolis-based developer, converted it into thirty-five artist lofts with retail on the ground floor.2
A genuine chip with the "Jessie Beck's Riverside" name would date from the Beck years of 1971 to 1978 or from other periods in which the casino used that name. The page does not say what chips the casino used or who made them.
About the TRK set
The trade post says only that the set contains 500 chips and is "TRK leaded", and several members expressed interest.1 TRK is described by the forum's glossary as defunct clay chip maker T.R. King.3 "Leaded" is collectors' shorthand for older clay chips said to contain lead; because that is a health consideration, handle such chips with care, wash hands after handling and keep them away from children.
What is not established:
- Whether the set was house issue. A set labelled with a casino name and made by a clay chip maker could be a house set, a replica commissioned later, or a collector's own assembly. The post does not say.
- The denominations and design. The post gives only the chip count.
- Production years. Not stated.
How to approach buying a chip like this
- Ask the seller for provenance (where the chips were acquired and when) and for photographs of all denominations.
- Look the venue up in the ChipGuide, which records the address, opening and closing dates and chip details for casinos, to see whether the Riverside is catalogued with TRK chips.4
- Compare your chips to catalogued examples rather than relying on a label.
- Treat "leaded" as a handling note, not a quality claim.
Separate Riverside venue research from set identification
'Riverside' appears in many place and property names, so start with Jessie Beck's Riverside Reno TRK chips, then try Jessie Beck Riverside T R King without the apostrophe. Include Reno before broadening the query. A Riverside hotel history is useful background, but it does not identify the maker or denomination of a chip photographed elsewhere.
For the 500-chip trade set, request a denomination-by-denomination inventory. Ask whether every chip bears the same original wording, whether any are relabeled, and whether the seller can identify a matching catalog entry. Photograph one of each value on both sides and record the crown mold separately from the venue name.
| Claim | Evidence worth asking for |
|---|---|
| Original casino set | Matching venue and issue references for each value |
| TRK | Close-up of the crown mold and a stated reference match |
| Leaded | Basis for the attribution, not merely the set's total weight |
| Complete 500-chip set | Actual quantities and any substitutions |
Does a box label establish provenance?
No. A box can identify what a collector intended to assemble without proving when or where the individual chips were issued. Keep the container label as one part of the record, along with the seller's history and the physical design. If the casino connection remains unresolved, describe that limitation when trading the set later.
Sources and further reading
- My racks for your quarters, Poker Chip Forum: trade post.
- Riverside Hotel, Nevada historic property listing: ownership timeline.
- PCF Poker Glossary, Poker Chip Forum: abbreviation list.
- ChipGuide, Museum of Gaming History: example of the database's entries.