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.”