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FITZGERALD'S NEVADA CLUB RENO HOARD Description: NGC FITZGERALD'S NEVADA CLUB RENO HOARD WITH 1883-0 MORGAN - 1922 PEACE DOLLAR - 1964 DOLLAR REPLACEMENT TOKEN I came across the above lot description in a Minnesota sale this week. In researching it I found a 2004 E-Sylum article which I'll republish in its entirety below. -Editor
The numismatic press has already covered Ron Gillio's recent purchase of a Nevada casino warehouse hoard of U.S. silver dollars and other material. Here are a few excerpts from a June 3 Associated Press article about the find: "When coin dealer Ronald J. Gillio gazed in the musty warehouse on the outskirts of Reno last year, he could not believe his eyes: Inside were boxes and boxes of commemorative casino spoons, matches, key chains and coasters - gambling junk accumulated over decades. Locked in safes in the warehouse was what he really was after - bags and bags of silver dollars, more than 100,000 in all. There were also thousands of casino chips in denominations from $1 to $100, old casino counting machines, a Seeburg jukebox and three vintage roulette wheels, including one with a rare single zero slot. Gillio, of Santa Barbara, Calif., bought it all - junk and treasure - for an undisclosed price. The property had been accumulated by the late Lincoln Fitzgerald, who at one time owned the Nevada Club in downtown Reno, the Nevada Lodge at Lake Tahoe and Fitzgeralds in Reno. Gillio dubbed the find "the Fitzgerald's hoard." "Some of the items were displayed in Las Vegas recently at an antique arms and coin show. Gillio figures the face value of the coins and chips is about $500,000. "It is amazing what some people keep," he said. "Things other people would throw away, Fitzgerald kept. I guess he had a sentimental attachment to them. It took us 60 days to clear out the warehouse." "In the Fitzgerald stash, he found empty bags from the Carson City Mint dating to the 1880s. While not particularly valuable, Gillio figures the bags and other gambling memorabilia have historical significance for Nevada. He plans to donate some items to the Nevada Historical Society in Reno and the Nevada State Museum in Carson City, which is in the same building that housed the mint." The link to the original Las Vegas Sun article is broken, illustrating why we use extensive quotes from the non-numismatic press in The E-Sylum. That information would be much harder for
numismatic researchers to find had it not been captured on a more stable platform. The E-Sylum itself is now backed up and searchable on the Newman Numismatic Portal. -Editor
To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see: To read the complete lot description, see: Wayne Homren, Editor The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org. To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum All Rights Reserved. NBS Home Page Contact the NBS webmaster 
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