Hello Everyone,
Let me tell you a story of the old days. I would say 90 - 95 % of the strikes I got I bought from the Casino's themselves. Even when they had machines in play I would be able to buy them. $10, $20, $28, $40 and $200 strikes for face all the time.
Here is how I did it for Vegas strikes. I would contact the casinos and ask for a supervisor in the cage. It had to be a supervisor because most the window cashiers wouldn't know what I was talking about if that casino didn't have machines for awhile. I would always get their name. I would call them about 3 months before my trip to see if they had anything or start saving them for me. If they didn't have anything I would still stop by and see them anyway. This made them feel special. Over time they got to know me (I even had their Email addresses). I would just ask if they had any Silver Strikes I could buy for my collection. Very rarely would they say you had to play the machines in order to get a strike. Sometimes I would tell them I needed a certain strike to complete my set and offered to switch with them. Sometimes they were happy to sell everything they had on hand. I did not always get strikes from the cage. Some of the casinos had these little booths that you could cash out. They didn't want to carry the strikes after their shift so they would sell them to me. The best time to get the strikes was 3rd shirt or early 1st shift before the big bosses got in.
This is how I got Atlantic City strikes. I would contact the casinos and ask for a supervisor in the cage. It had to be a supervisor because most the window cashiers wouldn't know what I was talking about if that casino didn't have machines for awhile. I would always get their name. I would call them about 3 months before my trip to see if they had anything. If they didn't have anything I would still stop by and see them anyway. This made them feel special. Over time they got to know me (I even had their Email addresses or direct phone numbers). I would just ask if they had any Souvenir Prize Tokens I could buy for my collection. Very rarely would they say you had to play the machines in order to get a strike (if they still had the machines). Most of the casinos quit having machines in the early 2000's.
The big difference is that Las Vegas called them Silver Strikes and Atlantic City called them Souvenir Prize Tokens. On one trip I had a friend on the same trip and told him to buy the strikes. He went in and he came out and said they didn't have any. I went in and bought about $1000 worth. The difference was he went up to the cashier and asked for silver Strikes. They said no because they never heard of them. I would go in and ask for a supervisor and ask for a Souvenir Prize token and they would say how many do you want. I always took all of them. Sometimes I would even take one in with me to show them to jog their memory. Sometimes I would go into a casino and ask for some and they would say we cannot sell them and then I would go on the other side of the casino and ask and they would say "How many do you want"?
Some of the best strikes I got over the years was the Rockettes from Flamingo, a couple of Treasure Island $40 ships, about a half dozen Imperial Palace $200's, 500 Binion strikes. I have gone to Vegas and bought $11000 worth the strikes and when I got home I saved $1000 for my collection and then scrapped the $10000 balance for $16000 within a week. I did this two years in a row. No silver in the strikes so no collecting for me. I do not plan on coming to Vegas again since most is just clad.
Happy Collecting. I'm done.
Sarge