AN ESSAY ON GAMING COUNTERS

Abstract
Gaming counters are the historical precedent to today's gaming chips and tokens widely used in Casinos around the world. In use since the 1200s, the genre has changed with time and cultures. The study of American counters was undertaken by numismatist Benjamin Fauver who published nine books on the subject. Fauver's personal collection provides an important window into the study of the manufacture, distribution and use of many of these counters.

American counters come in many forms from many different die sinkers from several different countries over a wide span in time. Their use was ostensibly for a variety of card games, which may have begun with Whist, a form of Bridge as we know it today. Originally a western European game, it worked its way into America but was never as popular as it was in Europe. Instead, forms of poker took over, still prevalent today.

During the course of study of counters, some glaring anomalies arose, true mysteries that became the source of questions and intrigue.

This paper aims to lay out a general discussion of counters: where they came from, how they were used, who made them, how they were distributed and other factors. Part of the discussion is the use of Fauver's catalogs, something quite difficult for the average numismatist. Following the general discussion is an outline of the questions that arose from the research. The key questions of interest are "Why and when were US gold coin look-alikes made?" "Where were they distributed, and under what circumstances?" These important questions have never been asked or contemplated in published works. The findings are surprising, even possibly controversial.

Introduction
American Gaming Counters should be as widely collected as the US gold coins they mimic. Unfortunately, overall they are rare. Today, the main reason they are rare is that Benjamin Fauver fell in love with the pieces, collected and bought virtually every piece he could afford (circa 1970- 1992) and hoarded them with the ultimate goal of writing and publishing the definitive collecting guidebooks, which he did in 1989 with a series of nine books. Fauver bought out nearly all the old collections, scoured coin shows, ran advertisements and went after every collecting medium he could think of to gather "counters."

The result was that Fauver collected thousands of pieces. He became fascinated with the source in antiquity of counters in western Europe and began collecting those too.

Over the years, as I became fascinated with these lookalike US gold coins and relics of the California Gold Rush gambling communities, our company(s) began acquiring them, first as a collection, then for resale. At the time, getting counters "slabbed" by third party grading services was almost impossible. While a few were listed in a number of important references such as Russ Rulau's massive token tome, most were unknown to the grading services, who did not have copies of Fauver's catalogs. My attempts at third party grading years ago were futile. We "typed" each piece we sent in, only to have the grading service completely ignore the Fauver "type" and catalog number. Days and weeks of study went completely down the drain. Fauver's guidebooks didn't help – they were privately published in small quantity, difficult to attain, and are complicated with very little discussion about the pieces themselves, something we all like to read and learn about.

Today, there is better communication and understanding between all parties, and the problems we face in the collecting community are much different. The biggest problem was created by Fauver himself – he hoarded everything he could get, which removed competing collectors from the field, and the desire or demand for counters fell dramatically. Today, we've seen this pattern far too often- in the collecting fields of "western outlaws", rare western photographs and many more fields, where one very serious and enthusiastic collector in each field bought everything, then quit collecting when the collecting goal was achieved. The markets crashed right behind it.

The remaining problem is obvious – market. The market for counters needs to be re-established. With the Fauver Collection, there are hundreds of pieces in mint states. Will they withstand the cost of third party grading and certification in the new market? In order to get these out in a timely manner, it became necessary to release them "raw." We have experimented with a number of certified and raw pieces placed into differing forms of numismatic auctions with very mixed results, that when looked upon analytically, make no sense. With this knowledge, we have chosen to "lot" the coins into specific small collections, highlighting several different facets of counters that could attract new and old collectors alike.

Fauver split counters into categories, choosing to create a number of separate works instead of a single volume. All were privately published and distributed by Fauver.

(no number) Exonumia, Symbolism and Classification (1982)

Part 1. Eagle and Double Eagle Gold (1983)

Part 2. Half Eagle Gold (1989)

Part 3. Three Dollar and Quarter Eagle Gold (1989)

Part 4. One Dollar Gold and One Dollar Silver (1990)

Part 5. Minor Denominations and Miscellany (1990)

Part 6. Latin America and Canada (1990)

(No number) A trial Listing of Recmenmeister/ A B C Counters of the 1500s (1990)

(no number) Early California Counters (1991)

To read the complete article, see:
Gaming Counters – An Essay (http://s3.amazonaws.com/auctionmobility-wordpress-node-4/wp-content/uploads/holabird/2020/08/13175729/Gaming-Counters-Essay.pdf)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web