Question of the Day - 20 September 2020

You’re right about the new Circa hotel-casino having displaced the Las Vegas Club.

In purchasing the Club, Circa co-owner Derek Stevens did not obtain rights to the sports souvenirs and photos. Those stayed with Tamares Group, outgoing owner of the property.

Vital Vegas blogger Scott Roeben picks up the thread: “There was quite a bit left toward the end. It wasn't included in the sale, so it went back to Jonathan Jossel and the Plaza Hotel [owned by the Tamares Group] — they gave some away as part of casino promotions, from what I remember, but a good deal of it was sold in a pop-up gallery at the Plaza.”

Where Island Sushi once stood in the Plaza, you could peruse memorabilia that included framed jerseys and a plethora of sports photographs. Prices were described at the time (late 2015) as “very reasonable” … unless you wanted that autographed Michael Jordan North Carolina Tar Heels jersey, said to be “the hot item”; it fetched at least $10,000 at auction. And you could walk away with a pair of seats from Comiskey Park, for instance. 

One of the beneficiaries was the University of Nevada-Las Vegas Libraries Special Collections Department, which received a 10% slice of all sale proceeds.

But the bottom line is the collection has been scattered to the four winds, never to be seen again. As the Plaza’s Amy Maier tells us, “By early 2016, most of the collection had been sold and a few items were kept by the Plaza.” Let’s hope they see the light of day again.