It was 1996 & I was not even collecting Silver Strikes. I had gone up to the Gold Strike in Boulder City to get the Labor Day $5 chips. They were not quite ready to release them so I had some time to kill. For those who don't know the Gold Strike had some of the worse Blackjack rules in the State! They did not even have a game going in the poker room. Since I don't really play the slot machines that did not leave much to do other then walk around.

As I made my way around the Casino floor I ended up back at the cage. Still no Labor Day chips! To the left of the cage & up against a wall was a single Silver Strike machine. I decided to throw a $10 bill in & kill some time that way. On my FIRST pull a strike falls out. Nothing after that & I'm even, but instead of my $10 bill I now have this coin in a case that is worth $10. About that time they release the Labor Day chips & as I walk up to the cage I'm about ready to cash in the Strike but end up slipping it in my pocket. Once I get home I throw it into a box with other tokens & coins that are not chips!

A little over a year goes by & I decide to make a Web site. As I go over what pages I want to include on the site I decide I'll put up a Silver Strikes page. I only had about a dozen or so Strikes that I had picked up here & there which included the Gold Strike with "Hoover Dam" on one side. I decide to list them all on my site at $15 each postage included. At this point I STILL do not collect Silver Strikes. A week goes by & I have a little bit of time to see if they might be worth more than $15. Up to that point anyone could have E-Mailed me that they wanted it & it would have been in the mail for $15. So, after checking around on the Internet I see where there was an error Strike that only said "Boulder, Nevada" & had the "City" missing. No WAY that I have that one! I get up to go check it out & sure enough that was the Strike I had. THAT was when I started to collect Silver Strikes. Even though the Gold Strike "Hoover Dam" is worth more my all time favorite is below. Andy - Las Vegas