Today let's look at a token form Luxor Las Vegas. Luxor opened on October 15th, 1993. This was about the time my friends and I would make our midnight runs to Las Vegas.
Las Vegas is a large valley which means that driving in from California you don't see the strip until you come over the rise of the landscape pretty close to the town. However, way before we could see any type of civilization out there on our desert drive we could see the Luxor Sky Beam.
I love how they depict the light beam on the token!
Wikipedia says:
At 42.3 billion candela (candle power) , the Luxor Sky Beam is the strongest beam of light in the world, using curved mirrors to collect the light from 39 xenon lamps and focus them into one intense, narrow beam. On a clear night, the Sky Beam is visible up to 275 miles (443 km) away by aircraft at cruising altitude, such as over Los Angeles
This is what you see coming in on the 15 freeway but on a clear night you can see the beam an hour before you get there. It was always the point in the drive were we would start to get really excited.
These tokens have a tasty 0.60ozt silver center surrounded by a ring of brass. When I take them out of the airtite to photograph them I can hear the center piece rattle around inside that brass.
All the tokens I will be showing are a $10 value at the casino cage but they sell for well over $20 on the open market. I wonder if folks actually cashed these in for a crisp 10 dollar bill at the casino?
