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Gambling Memorabilia featuring The Collection of Tom Blue

auction | 1 day sale | sale is over

Address

The address for this sale in Chicago, IL 60613 will no longer be shown since it has already ended.

Dates

Sat

Mar 30

10am to 5pm

2019

Potter & Potter Auctions, Inc.

(773) 472-1442

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We accept cash, check, money order, and credit cards, the latter with a 2.5% service fee. All sales are subject to a 20% buyer's premium. If you cannot attend in person, we are happy to accept phone and absentee bids. Bid online at Liveauctioneers.com. While we can and will ship items to you, we prefer all items purchased at the auction are removed on the day of the sale by the purchasers.

Description & Details

Over the course of several decades, Tom Blue has assembled one of the most impressive gambling collections in the United States. Tantalizing selections of rare and antiquarian volumes from his library will lead off the auction, including titles on poker, playing cards, cheating and advantage play, notorious gamblers, cons, criminals, and related subjects. Complementing the books, the sale will feature scarce supply catalogs, antique prints, collectable playing cards, and posters. A fine array of the appurtenances of old-time gambling halls—dealing shoes, check racks, case keepers, layouts, and more—will also come up on the block. Crooked and square equipment, Bakelite, bone,...

Favorite Sale

Gambling Memorabilia featuring The Collection of Tom Blue MARCH 30, 2019 • 10:00 AM

Strong, J.C. (James Carey). Gambling Dice Cards. Why Players Lose [cover title]. Hollywood: Hollywood Book Co., (1929). Publisher's pictorial cloth. Illustrated. 8vo. 144pp. Slight lean; near fine. Covers dice control and crooked dice, cheating at roulette, “blue rooms,” plus probabilities and gamblers’ habits. Addressing gambling house operators as well as players, the author quips, “Percentage will accomplish the same result as graft. It don’t hurt the business and is just as sure in the long run.

[Head, Richard, and Francis Kirkman] The English Rogue: Described in the Life of Meriton Latroon, a Witty Extravagant: Comprising the Most Eminent Cheats of Both Sexes. London: Francis Kirkman, 1666; 1671; 1680. Four volumes in two. Full English mottled calf, extra gilt binding by Bedford, morocco title compartments, ruled covers, gilt turn-ins, a.e.g. 8vo. Together, eleven plates (lacking the portrait frontispieces). Small restored corner loss to terminal leaf of second part, only slight loss of text; occasional light spotting and offsetting, fine overall. Wing [cf. 1247], 1249, 1251. Wing does not record this 1680 edition of the third (and scarcest) part, while Hazlitt does (Second Series, p. 273).

Will & Finck Brass Sleeve Holdout. San Francisco, ca. 1880s. Early Jacob’s Ladder-style sleeve holdout delivers a card into the gambler’s hand when his elbow is bent, and retracts when straightened. Brass with sturdy original leather straps and hardware. Stamped “Will & Finck/S.F. Cal” on the lever. Fine. This piece was used to illustrate the cheating section of “The Gamblers” in Time-Life’s Old West series (1978), p. 124.

Mills 10 Cent Gold Award Castle Front Slot Machine. Chicago, ca. 1931. Lock and key. Gold award tokens in machine. Working. Very good.

Mills 5 Cent Novelty Poinsettia Slot Machine. Chicago, ca. 1929. Unrestored, moderate paint wear. 20 x 16 x 14 ½”. Original lock and key.

Mills 5 Cent Cherry Front Slot Machine. Chicago, ca. 1937. Front having a “diamond” lower half and “cherry” upper half. Lock and key. Not working.

Pair of Wooden Slot Machine Stands. Oak stands with cast metal feet, frosted glass doors, outfitted with fluorescent lights inside the cabinets. Working. Very good.

Early Brass Sleeve Card Holdout. American, late nineteenth/early twentieth century. Early Jacob’s Ladder holdout in the Will & Finck style delivers a card into a gambler’s hand when his elbow is bent, and retracts when straightened. Extra large brass plate with riveted leather straps. Length 10” (extended). Expected age-consistent tarnish; fine.

[Cruikshank, Robert] Smeeton, George. Doings in London. Four Editions. London/Southwark: 1828; 1828; [n.d.]; 1850. Two copies of the first edition, plus the tenth and fourteenth editions. First eds. with frontispieces, one colored, the other uncolored, one retaining the original wraps, laid onto marbled boards. Illustrations by Bonner, after Cruikshank. 8vos. Describes “frauds, frolics, manners, and depravities of the metropolis”.