Sundance Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas) chips
A collector wanted up to a dozen excellent-condition Sundance $25 chips to finish a rack. The wanted thread shows the chips and mentions a favourite "spot pattern" but does not say who made them, or even which Sundance they are from.1 The best-documented venue of that name is the Sundance Hotel and Casino at the east end of Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas, and this article explains its history so you can judge whether a given chip could belong to it.
In this guide
The Sundance in Las Vegas
The hotel opened in July 1980 on land owned by Moe Dalitz. Because of the Gaming Commission's concerns about Dalitz, the casino was nominally operated by his associates Al Sachs and Herb Tobman; Wikipedia gives the opening as 2 July 1980. After licensing trouble in 1983, Jackie Gaughan took over management temporarily before a sale.2 The property was renamed Fitzgeralds Las Vegas in 1987 under Lincoln Management Group, was bought by Don Barden in December 2001 (making him the first African American casino owner in Las Vegas, according to Wikipedia), was sold to Derek and Greg Stevens in October 2011, and reopened after a $22 million renovation in 2012 as The D Las Vegas.2
Any chip with the Sundance name from that property therefore dates from 1980 to 1987, a short window. The pages read do not describe the chip designs, makers, or denominations the Sundance used.
What the collector thread shows
The wanted thread, for $25 chips in excellent or mint condition, includes photographs of a chip with a spot pattern, and a forum member refers to a "favourite spot pattern". That is a hint that collectors value the edge-spot design, but nothing on the page establishes that the chip is the Las Vegas hotel's house chip rather than another set with the same name.1
How to confirm a Sundance chip
- Look for the venue's location on the chip. House chips often name the city.
- Look the chip up in the ChipGuide, the Museum of Gaming History's database, which records the casino's address, opening and closing dates and the chip's colour, mould and inlay.3
- Do not accept a bare name. Ask sellers for photos of the face and edge and the denomination colour, and compare with a catalogue example before paying.
Completing a Sundance $25 rack without buying a near match
Make a reference card for the chip already in your collection: photograph both sides, the edge and several chips stacked together, then note the mold, body color, spot colors and center wording. A replacement should agree with that design before condition is considered. The desired 'spot pattern' in a wanted thread is not enough to identify every chip sold under the Sundance name.1
Ask a seller to show the offered pieces together in one photograph. This makes shade and wear differences easier to assess than separate images taken under different light. Specify the exact quantity required and whether you will accept a mixed-condition group; 'excellent' can mean different things to different sellers.
Search wording that follows the denomination
Try Sundance Hotel Casino $25 chips, Sundance Las Vegas 25 chip and Sundance green 25 casino chip if green is confirmed in your own reference. Keep the photograph as the deciding match, rather than assuming color alone identifies the issue.
Can a Fitzgeralds chip complete the Sundance set?
It can illustrate the later history of the same property, but it is a separate brand and design era.2 For an original Sundance collection, keep later property names as research clues and display context, not substitutes for the missing Sundance denomination.
Sources and further reading
- Wanted: excellent Sundance $25 chips, Poker Chip Forum: wanted thread.
- The D Las Vegas, Wikipedia: Sundance, Fitzgeralds and The D history.
- ChipGuide, Museum of Gaming History: example of the database's entries.