*ex* 2023 OTY Awards Nominations are Needed!

[Trey Warren R-8280]

Greeting my fellow CCA Collectors,

The time has come to open our annual OTY Awards nominations!  Our 2024 convention is just 4 short months away now.  Can you believe it?  Time has just flown by since last June.  I can't wait to see all our friends when we gather to celebrate our hobby together at South Point!  I hope everyone is ready to choose your favorite casino collectibles that were released in 2023 and send in a few nominations to me to make this contest fun.

Since a year has rolled around, for the fantastic Members who would like to participate, here are the basics:

We have 3 active categories of casino collectibles that you may nominate for the 2023 CCA OTY Awards:

1. Chip of the Year (COTY).
2. CCA Silver Strike of the Year (SSOTY).
*As a point of clarification, this is the CCA Silver Strike contest.  There is a separate annual award contest held by the Silver Striker's Club which often causes some confusion. I am a member of both clubs, if you enjoy collecting Silver Strikes and are not a current club member, I encourage you to consider joining the Silver Striker's Club.  You can find additional information or complete a membership application on Silverstrikers.com if you are interested in exploring membership.
3. Slot Card/Room Key of the Year (CKOTY).

Here are our current nomination rules:

• To submit CCA OTY nominations, you must be an active CCA member in good standing.
• Your choices for nominations must have been released in a casino in the year 2023 to be eligible for the contest.
• Nominations are now limited to 3 eligible casino items per member, per category.  You may nominate less if you wish.
• Nominations must be received by the deadline to be counted, prior to midnight (CST) March 17th, 2024 (Extended for Casino Collectibles News issue).
• Due to a lack of physical ballots received for the 2018 contest, we will continue to take all nominations through email only.  If you would like to submit a nomination and do not have access to email, please reach out to a fellow CCA Member that can submit your nominations on your behalf.
• Any items that were not released in 2023 will not be considered valid and will be disqualified from nominations.
• After the nomination period has closed, I will publish our finalists in March, along with details on our voting process to choose the final winners that will be announced in June at the 2024 CCA convention.

If you need help reviewing options to choose your nominees, here are some helpful tips on locating images of chips, silver strikes, room keys, & player's cards that were released during 2023:

We have multiple convenient ways to look at 2023 COTY casino chip options:

Option 1 – Browse for "New Release Alert" posts on the Casino Collectibles Association – CCA official Facebook page.

Option 2 – Review the "2023 New Chip Releases" thread on the Poker Chip Forum. (link below)
https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/2023-new-chip-releases.108630/

   **I want to send a special thank you shout out to Paul Schaffer for posting the new releases throughout the year on Facebook and for adding the images to the Poker Chip Forum thread to make it easier for CCA Members to review nomination options!


Option 3 – Search the ChipGuide website for new releases.
1. Go to the The ChipGuide. (www.chipguide.com).
2. Click "ChipGuide Query Facility" from the options under the "Features" section on the left side of the page.
3. In the filter section, for Casino Status, select "Open".  There are 2 filters that you will need to check, for Collectible Type, choose "Table Chips", the Date Range needs to be "Equal", and finally type "2023" in the Date 1 section.  Then click "Query".  After you review the options presented from your first search, you will need change the Collectible Type filter to "Limited Edition Chips" and click "Query" again to see the remaining nomination options.
 
**Take note of the "Issued" date to make sure your choice is eligible.

To review eligible 2023 SSOTY silver strikes nominees, access each of the following links online in the Silver Strike Catalog, on the Silver Strikers Club website:

•   https://www.silverstrikers.com/Web/Catalogs/SilverStrikes/Nevada/PlazaLVnv/Plaza-LVnv-Page-11.php/
•   https://www.silverstrikers.com/Web/Catalogs/SilverStrikes/Nevada/FourQueensLVnv/Four-Queens-LVnv-Page-25.php/
•   https://www.silverstrikers.com/Web/Catalogs/SilverStrikes/Nevada/FourQueensLVnv/Four-Queens-LVnv-Page-30.php/
•   https://www.silverstrikers.com/Web/Catalogs/SilverStrikes/Nevada/FourQueensLVnv/Four-Queens-LVnv-Page-46.php/

**Pay special attention to the "Issued" date to assess item eligibility.

To browse player's cards/rooms keys that were released in 2023:

1. Go to the The ChipGuide. (www.chipguide.com).
2. Click "ChipGuide Query Facility" from the options under the "Features" section on the left side of the page.
3. In the filter section, for Casino Status, select "Open".  There are 2 filters that you will need to check, for Collectible Type, choose "Player's Club (Slot) Cards", the Date Range needs to be "Equal", and finally type "2023" in the Date 1 section.  Then click "Query".  After you review the options presented from your first search, you will need change the Collectible Type filter to "Room Keys" and click "Query" again to see the remaining nomination options. 

• Again, please reference the "Issued" date to confirm nomination eligibility.

Credit for these images go to our fellow collectors that are members of both the CCA & Silver Striker's Club that love our hobby and kindly submitted them to both the Chip Guide & to the Silver Striker's Club for sharing on the websites.  Since both websites rely our fellow collectors for image submissions, every piece released in 2023 may not be represented at this time.  If you notice that a favorite item of yours that was released in a casino in 2023 is missing from any of the search queries, you are still welcome to nominate the piece for the 2023 CCA OTY Awards contest. Please send a scan of missing item when you submit your completed nomination form for eligibility verification.

I have 2 different email addresses that you may send your nominations to:
OTY@CCGTCC.com & link2179@juno.com.

When you submit your 2023 CCA OTY nominations be sure to include the following information:
• Your name & CCA Member number.
• For each nominated item, please specify the category (COTY, SSOTY, CKOTY), the casino name, the denomination (if it applies), a description, the city/locale, & the state/country that the nominee was released in. (Remember, you are limited to 3 nominations per category)
• An image of each nominated item if available.

Let's make this an exciting contest, please choose a few stand out items you acquired as they were released in 2023, and consider nominating them for a prestigious OTY Award!  Please stay tuned for additional 2023 CCA OTY Award updates in our newsletter, future issues of the CCA Casino Collectible News, and on our chat boards as well.

See you at South Point!

Trey Warren
CCA OTY Chairman