Lately, I've been showing some Las Vegas casino Silver Strike tokens that I won when I lived in Vegas in the early 2000s. I was not a stacker at the time and just enjoyed winning a shiny token from the slots rather than a paper ticket.
I have had a couple of good questions about these so today I will take a little time to dive into the answers to some questions. I hope you enjoy.
What is a Silver Strike?
It is a limited edition silver token won ONLY from the Silver Strike line of slot machines. These tokens were issued in many casinos throughout the United States, Canada, the Caribbean and Cruise Ships. The first of these tokens were won from slot machines in the Reno/Tahoe area of Nevada in 1992.
The tokens have been issued with redeemable values of $2, $3, $5, $7, $10, $12, $20, $28, $40, $200, $300 and range in size from 1-1/2 inches to 3-1/2 inches in diameter depending on the value. The $200 & $300 are the only Silver Strikes to be paid by the attendant, due to its size and weight. The amount of silver in each token value varies.
The $10 tokens I have been showing have a 0.06ozt .999 fine silver center with a brass ring.
These were not available at the casino cage or in the gift shops at the casinos. The only way to get on was to win it at the Silver Strike slot machine. As you can see from the picture these machines were easy to spot in the casino and I searched them out when I would think of it. Let's look at one in action!!
Silver Strikers Club
There is a fan/collectors club for these tokens and the have a website that is as thorough as the AllEngelhard website is for Engelhard silver. There is a FULL CATALOG of these tokens on the site.
Let's take a look at the listings for the two New Frontier tokens I posted a couple of weeks back. Post 1, post 2
This is a thorough listing with lots of info as you can see. I guess only the mint would know the mintage numbers as most of the listings I have looked at do not have the mintage amount listed.
Who minted these?
Glad you asked, LOTS of different mints minted these rounds, here is a chart from the Silver Strikers website...
Hoffman & Hoffman and The Perth Mint catch my eye but I have not searched all my rounds for the mint marks...yet!
Do they still have these slot machines?
Uh, sadly there are only three left, two in Vegas and one in New Mexico and the $10 strikes are now CLAD.
:(
Future
I am about halfway through posting my stack of these tokens so there is more to come! Here is the #piratesunday pile of loot we have looked at so far.
