“The clanging of them dropping into the slot machines’ troughs, and the ringing and tingling sound they made when blackjack and craps dealers stacked them and paid them out to players, created an ambience that patrons loved.”Ĭirca 1964, Harrah became dismayed at the thousands of silver dollars being drained from the casino by the souvenir-crazy public exchanging large sums of paper for the pre-1936 cartwheels. “The old silver dollars played an integral role in the casinos’ Western-themed persona,” Goe said.
The sandblasted 1889-O Morgan dollar illustrated with this article was brought to Goe’s coin shop a number of years ago, he said, by a former employee in Harrah’s Casino who claimed to be part of the sandblasting crew. Goe also provided images of some of the coins that Harrah’s Casino had sandblasted. While Hollowell got the general sense of the story correct, coin expert Rusty Goe from Southgate Coins in Reno added the specifics.
