Gambling Auction: Cards, Chips & Crooked Dice 2012-06-23 Auction - 349 Price Results - Potter & Potter Auctions in IL
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126: Harry Anderson’s Stage Used Holdout - The Grappler261: Auto-Dicer. Demley, ca. 1920. Push-button dice gam337: Gambling wheel. American, ca. 1900. Hand painted,
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Chicago, IL, United States
Auction Details

Gambling Auction: Cards, Chips & Crooked Dice

On June 23, 2012, Potter & Potter Auctions will conduct its second annual auction of gambling memorabilia. A highlight of the sale will be a recently discovered set of duplicate books from El Patio, an illegal mob-run casino from Cicero Illinois. Louis Campagna, one of Al Capone's closest bodyguards, owned a piece of the action at El Patio. The books - uncovered in the rafters of the club by a construction worker who helped demolished the building in the 1960s - lays out exactly what illegal gambling was going on there in the heyday of the mob in the Chicago 'burbs, and how the house almost always won. They recall the era of Prohibition and illegal gambling dens of the 1930s, depicted in movies like The Godfather. One of the books even ?names names,? cataloging the identities of all the employees at the club. The books have never, until now, seen the light of day. The auction will also feature relics of another dark side of gambling: cheating devices. These devices make winning games of chance a sure thing. Among them will be two Holdout Tables - pieces of furniture that secretly add or remove cards from the hands of the gambler, and another table which allows the operator to literally see through the backs of playing cards in his opponent?s hands. These will be complemented by many rare and early books on how to cheat at various table games. Among them are the true first edition of How Gamblers Win, of which only five examples are known; a possibly unique book on cheating at Baccarat, Le Guide du Jouer; and a first edition of S.W. Erdnase's The Expert at the Card Table. Rounding out the sale will be an assortment of decorative items, ephemera, punch boards, roulette wheels, faro dealing boxes, layouts, case keepers, corner rounders and trimmer, trade stimulators, associated gambling and gaming items and rare books on poker, dice, and trade catalogs.
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Dens of London. London: J. Duncombe, 1848.: Dens of London [cover title]. London: J. Duncombe, 1848. One-third leather spine stamped in gold over marbled boards. Folding colored frontispiece by Cruikshank, and with humorous illustrations
0016: Dens of London. London: J. Duncombe, 1848.Est. $100-$200
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Eugene Edwards, Jack Pots. Stories .. 1900: Edwards, Eugene. Jack Pots. Stories of the Great American Game. Chicago: Jamieson-Higgins Co., 1900. Pictorial wraps. With over 50 illustrations by Ike Morgan. 8vo. Wraps soiled. Good. Jessel 472.
0018: Eugene Edwards, Jack Pots. Stories .. 1900Est. $100-$200
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Erdnase Expert at the Card Table, signed: Erdnase, S.W. The Expert at the Card Table. Chicago: Frederick J. Drake, ca. 1905. Grey pictorial wraps. King of Hearts on front wrap lacks pips. Illustrated. 12mo. Spine chipped at head and foot,
0020: Erdnase Expert at the Card Table, signedEst. $500-$600
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Gerritt M. Evans. How Gamblers Win. NY, 1865.: Evans, Gerritt M. How Gamblers Win. New York: Gerritt M. Evans & Co., 1865. First edition. Green cloth stamped in gold. 12mo. Lower third of title page expertly restored, front hinge reinforced,
0021: Gerritt M. Evans. How Gamblers Win. NY, 1865.Est. $3,000-$4,000
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