Today I received an email from a fellow collector and good friend who is very upset along with myself about the minting of HSP $10 Strikes! First it was conversation about how to save this hobby with collecting Silver Strikes because of the way silver was increasing in value. The casino's claimed it was costing them quite a bit of money to mint a $10 strike, more then the face value or very close to it. Davo had posted the question on this board on how the collectors would feel if the casino's and the mint stopped minting .999 Fine Silver strikes and went to HSP strikes instead. If my memory serves me correctly it came out to approx. 78% in favor of keeping the strikes .999 Fine Silver and approx. 22% who really didn't care and would still continue to collect. Now I don't claim to be a mathamatition, but didn't the Casino's and their Slot Managers who are in charge of their Silver Strike Programs who alway's read this BB get the same % readings that I and many others did? They stated that they were going to only do the $10's in HSP and keep the Red Caps and $200's .999 Fine Silver, for some reason that seems to have changed again and now they are stating that the Red Caps will also be HSP. Even after everyone who responded to the question from Davo, the Casino's never even asked us, who are the collectors and promote this program and spend our hard earned money, not only in their casino's but also in the many hotels, restaurants, airlines, taxi service and rental cars. Wouldn't it have been easier just to keep the $10 Silver Strikes the same size and to change the TEN to TWENTY on the existing strikes. I am not a Rocket Scientist, but sometimes you can't see the TREES FOR THE FOREST! I know I travel with my wife from the east coast (4-5) times a year to come to Las Vegas just to play for Silver Strikes in the Casino's that still have the Silver Strike machines and attend the Convention. This will all come to a stop if the Casino's go to HSP and with the way the economy is now, every customer means money, CHA CHING CHA CHING!!!
Jerry Sacco SS#673