Collector Steve Cutler poses with rare casino chips at his home Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2022.
Saturday, Dec. 3, 2022 | 2 a.m.
Steven Cutler points to one of the seemingly countless artifacts from Las Vegas’ colorful past adorning the walls of his home office and starts telling a story.
His collection of 500,000 pieces — his rough estimate — is a walking history of vintage Las Vegas.
There’s an ashtray from the old Moulin Rouge hotel, a signed photo from Liberace, and numerous classic casino chips from the Flamingo, Caesars Palace, Stardust and other casinos.
Cutler picks up a gaming chip from his collection — this one from the old California Club — and starts reminiscing.
“This is a $30,000 chip; this is a great chip,” Cutler said. “That’s not the California Hotel that you might be thinking of, this is from the California Club, which opened on Fremont Street in the 1950s. There are three known chips like this that exist in the world.”
Cutler said his “holy grail” of chips is a set from the old Sahara worth about $100,000. The set contains chips of $20, $50, $100, $500, and $1,000 denominations. It’s unique, Cutler said, because the sets were sequential, and his is numbered “0001.”
Cutler once received an offer of $20,000 for the set, but said he “laughed it off.”
“There’s nothing else like this in the world,” Cutler said. “I have crazy things, things nobody should own. I have entertainer contracts, paychecks, china sets, swizzle sticks … everything.”
Much of the collection is kept at a warehouse. A lot of pieces once made up the old Casino Legends Hall of Fame, which was an attraction at the Tropicana that closed in 2005. Cutler also had small attractions at different times in Reno and Laughlin.
Cutler said he’s been in contact with officials at museums and resorts to host some of his items, but stressed he’s not in the business of just donating his items.
“For 15 years, I tried to reestablish the Casino Legends Hall of Fame,” Cutler said. “Everybody told me that they loved it and that it was really cool, but …”
Cutler’s voice trailed off as he contemplated whether there could be a future for a rebirthed hall of fame.
“If somebody was smart, they’d buy everything that I own and just do it,” Cutler said. “I’m not going to be around in a year or two. I’m dying. Everything I own is for sale, to be very honest and blunt.”
Cutler went on to explain that he has cancer of the throat, tongue and lymph nodes. At 71, he’s facing his own mortality.
“I just finished having six rounds of (chemotherapy) and 30 rounds of radiation,” he said. “I’m not sure it did any good.”
As he continued to talk about his vintage items, Cutler didn’t sound like a man close to his last days. Instead, he had a twinkle in his eye and often a smile on his face as he displayed his fondness for a period in Las Vegas that he called “glamorous” and “authentic.”
The collection also includes dice from the old Apache Club inside the Apache Hotel, original copies of Las Vegas Age newspapers from the 1930s, numerous casino security badges, and casino chips melted from the 1980 MGM Grand fire or recovered from Lake Tahoe.
Whenever a resort has a change in ownership or rebrand that requires a new design in the property’s gaming chips, operators are legally required to post notice that existing chips would only hold any value for a certain amount oftime. The leftover chips are then destroyed. As is the case with items that become collectible, only so many remain, which render many of them valuable.
In September, Cutler had some of his items at a casino collectibles show at the Gold Coast.
“Everything I’m selling is being deeply discounted,” Cutler said.
Cutler’s hope is that most of his collection is bought up. He’d love for there to be a Casino Legends Hall of Fame 2.0.
“Mr. Cutler has a really impressive collection,” said Michal Green, a Las Vegas historian and UNLV professor who is on the Mob Museum’s board of directors. “He’s like a lot of people out there in that he has some stuff that should probably be in a museum. He and people like him, I think, need to make sure they talk to museums and people who can evaluate their items and preserve for others.”
Casino operators are primarily concerned with profit margins — and space inside a casino is quite valuable — but Green said he thinks it’s possible that “the right kind of casino operator” in Las Vegas could have use for some type of casino hall of fame attraction.
“It could work,” Green said. “To have maybe a small space that could potentially attract people, that could be a good thing for a casino operator. With the Mob Museum, the city has supported that endeavor, but the museum has helped them, too. There are people who come to the museum, then partake in what’s near it.”
As a historian, Green said he believes artifacts should always be kept in the best possible environment, so as to make sure the pieces will live on as long as possible. As far as having an eye for what’s collectible, Cutler said there are few in his category when it comes to vintage casino pieces.
In fact, when casino mogul Steve Wynn bought the Desert Inn a little over 20 years ago — it was eventually razed to make room for the Wynn and Encore properties — he called Cutler to come by and evaluate some old items.
“He wanted me to go through all this stuff and tell him what was valuable and what wasn’t,” Cutler said. “A lot of stuff I knew wasn’t valuable, so it just went into the trash. Anything else, if there was a duplicate, I was free to take one for the hall of fame.
Cutler’s all-time favorite Las Vegas entertainer is Liberace, though he said Sammy Davis Jr. is a close second.
“Las Vegas has such a colorful history,” Cutler said. “There’s nothing more sexy than vintage Vegas in the 1950s or the 1960s. It was so different back then. I also think about Frank Sinatra. There have been some horrible stories about him, and he did some bad things, but he was a great guy. He did a lot for this city, which, unfortunately, people don’t talk about enough.”
And Cutler could talk for days about the Las Vegas of yesterday. He said one Sinatra story stands out.
“There was a lot of racism in this city back in the old days,” Cutler said. “(Sinatra) told Jack Entratter, who was entertainer director at the Sands back then, that if they weren’t going to let Sammy Davis stay at the hotel, he’d be done with them. They ended up changing that rule.”
As Cutler wound down his artifact tour and trip down memory lane, he said he doesn’t want anyone to feel sorry for him.
“I had a great run,” Cutler said. “I can’t complain, but it is a shame that the hall of fame doesn’t exist anymore. I hope I get a call from someone who wants to do something with all this stuff.”
