[bjjensen]

Originally Posted by Gaming Ore

Good questions. I will answer as best I can, however, if I make a mistatement Smooth7 (aka: Jay Sands, Vice President-elect of the CC&GTCC and Auction Co-Chair) will set me straight!

The proceeds of the auction go to the CC&GTCC's General Fund. This is detailed in the Auction Catalogue. I believe the Club gets a cut from the buyer and the seller!

As a "Memorial Auction" it is in tribute to Bruce. The auction was his pride and joy and in essence, when he passed away (heart attack at the office Christmas party) the was honoring him by naming the annual auction after him. The Club has done this with several other deceased and once instrumental members. The Robert "Bob" Mera Award is given for the "Recruiter of the Year". The Harvey J. Fuller Award goes to the best article in the Club's magazine.

Bob Mera had a chip shop on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City. It was a defacto meeting place for Eastcoast chippers and many a person became a new collector by stumbling in to the shop and being awed by it's owner and his selections of casino memorabilia.

Harvey Fuller is perhaps best described as the Father of Chip Collecting. Instead of recreating his story, here is the CC&GTCC write-up on this Hall of Famer...


Harvey Fuller was a Los Angeles police officer from 1946 until he retired in 1977. He developed an interest in gaming checks and their history, but it wasn’t until he retired that he had full time to devote to his avocation. Fuller began to travel throughout Nevada, stopping not only in every casino he could find, but coffee shops, diners, barber shops, anywhere that locals gathered and traded stories.
With his investigative training, Harvey listened and steered conversations to old clubs, gaming figures and casino history. His note-taking procedure was unique: he grabbed handfuls of keno tickets with blank backs, and wherever he went he wrote his reminders on the backs of the keno tickets. His research eventually led him to the State’s records, although he found a huge gap from 1948 to 1955, because a fire had destroyed many of the Gaming Control Board’s original records. With persistence and investigation, Fuller did his best to fill in those gaps.
Through Howard Herz, Harvey’s Resort in Lake Tahoe became interested in Fuller’s notes and research, and purchased boxes full of his keno tickets, matchbooks, slips of paper, all of which comprised the research he’d been conducting for years. In 1991, with the assistance of Editor Howard Herz, Harvey J. Fuller’s Index of Nevada Gambling Establishments was published. To this day, Fuller’s Index stands as a primary research source for anyone interested in Nevada gaming history.
In the late 1990’s, Doug Saito persuaded Fuller to talk to him in detail about his research, recollections, and experiences in traveling throughout Nevada and talking with old-timers about their memories. Saito occasionally publishes bits of his conversations with Fuller in his magazine, Chip Chat. Those who have attended CC&GTCC conventions will remember seeing Harvey Fuller with his omnipresent cigarette, always deeply involved in conversation with a seasoned collector, and always telling stories about his original and valuable investigations. Harvey was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2001.

As you might guess, the Club is made up of many different interests and from a wide variety of economic abilities. The Auction Committee purposely tries to include some items that are of a lesser demand and value so that the auction is not branded as a rich persons event.

Jay, if you read this, be easy on me!

J(GO)F

Thanks a ton, Jim! Interesting and useful information. Great to hear that the club gets to benefit from the auction, and those selling/buying can know that they're helping contribute to the club's success.

Thanks also for the info on the other members who helped make the club such a success.

bjjensen