'The reason I started collecting Cuban chips is because the casino business is interwoven with the history of Cuba. 'I felt they had true beauty, the artwork and history behind them,' says one New York chip collector who doesn't want his identity known, should it make it more difficult for him to bring chips out of Cuba.
It's not the value of Cuban chips, however, that attract most of today's collectors. Cuban chips have become prized possessions to many within the expanding cadre of casino chip collectors. Nearly 30 years later, the value of those chips has been restored many times over. Gaming tables and slot machines were avenues. With a new government poised to take control of the island in the coming days, Cuban peasants sacked the casinos that had long barred them from entering. The reveling ended, however, with word that Cuban President Fulgencio Batista had fled the country, leaving it to revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro and Ernesto 'Che' Guevara. Thousands of partiers were gambling in the island's famous Havana casinos-among them the Flamingo, Riviera, Tropicana, Hilton and Capri.
