My lottery collecting started in 1985, I was amazed at the amount of art work that went into the scratch off lottery tickets. I thought that I was the only person saving these tickets, but I was wrong, I found a club that was saving these tickets. The Lottery Collectors Society was its name. I joined the club and became member #413. I found out that they had yearly conventions. I packed my bags and went to my first convention in St. Louis, IL. I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to hold a convention here in Arizona. In March of 1995 I spent $400. Of my money for a room at the Travel Lodge in Phoenix. We not only had a great time, but the members wanted to continue this every year. To be able to afford this we started our own club, which was later named the Global Lottery Collectors, Inc. I was named its first President and the local members decided to hold monthly meetings for the next convention and article for the monthly newsletter, which I became Editor and Publisher for the next five years. During that time the club grew from 12 members to well over 200 members. We decided that we should have a name for what we do and after several months the members came up with Lotologist. This is the name I gave the newsletter and Bill Cup was going to have it placed in the Webster Dictionary. After sending him tons of material with Lotologist on it and 2 years of work it is now in the Dictionary .During the five years I became the Western States Distributor of Mint tickets. I now have a complete collection of several states. In 2000 I merged the club with the other club and it became the Global Lottery Collectors Society which I still belong. I have became very interested in 1700 and 1800 tickets. I purched several books and began buying these old tickets from all over the world. I noticed that there wasn’t a museum and these tickets were going to collectors, which the public would never be able to see. Manny of the states were built with lotteries because the public did not want to be taxed._.