Making use of a good but not great breakdown of non-denoms (1 Viewer)

[jbutler]

So as I noted in this thread, I bought a 1200-piece lot of paranoid inlaid FDL chips from the early to mid 1900s. I was only recently bit by the bug to try to find them, so I was quite lucky to have such quick success and at quite a reasonable price.

Here's a shot of a rack of the chips I purchased (but have not yet received):

Breakdown is:

210 (blue)
400 (white)
160 (red)
160 (yellow)
210 (chocolate)

Plus another 60 chips mixed including yellow, blue, and chocolate.

The question is how to best use the above breakdown. I don't have enough of any single denom at this point to use them in a limit game (which would be my preferred use for chips of this vintage and design), so, being limited to big bet games, what values would you assign the above colors?

I have then listed above in their traditional positions - frac, $1, $5, $20, $100 - with liberties taken in order to use the chocolate as a $100 chip. Would anyone do anything differently?

Would it be crazy to use the yellow as the frac and the blue as a $10 chip? Using both $5 and $10 chips in a game would ordinarily seem sacrilegious to me, but it might make the set suitable for an 8-max limit $5/10/15 game.

Overall I really cannot complain about the breakdown given how quickly I found these and how playable it already is, but I'll be on the lookout for additional chips, but thought some folks might have creative solutions.

 

[Trihonda]

I initially thought of the blue as the frac/quarter and the yellow as the $20 chip...

 

[BGinGA]

I'd go with your value assignments, although I'd dump the hundo idea and combine colors to create more fivers - chocolate cherries (red and chocolate). Yellow fracs and blue $10s would work, too. You ever gonna need that many $100's? Chocolate could be a snapper, too, depending on stakes.....

 

[jbutler]

I'd go with your value assignments, although I'd dump the hundo idea and combine colors to create more fivers - chocolate cherries (red and chocolate). Yellow fracs and blue $10s would work, too. You ever gonna need that many $100's? Chocolate could be a snapper, too, depending on stakes.....

ever need that many hundos? absolutely not. in fact i almost didn't even take all the chocolates when i was negotiating price, but couldn't bear to leave them behind in that quantity.

it occurred to me to mid the red and choc for $5s, but i don't know if i could handle it. although i don't know which would be more irritating: that or using blue $10s along with the red $5s.

ultimately i think the only real solutions are: (1) use this set for microstakes games with crowds that won't blow through stacks (do not currently have a group that fits this mold); or (2) just find some more friggin' chips. option 2 is obviously preferable...

 

[DrStrange]

That looks good to me. You will not have any trouble running any sort of game you'd like with 1,100+ chips in the set.

DrStrange

PS Back in the day, I think blue chips were high value chips.

 

[jbutler]

That looks good to me. You will not have any trouble running any sort of game you'd like with 1,100+ chips in the set.

DrStrange

PS Back in the day, I think blue chips were high value chips.

meaning blues traditionally played as $10 or $100?

 

[jbutler]

That looks good to me. You will not have any trouble running any sort of game you'd like with 1,100+ chips in the set.

DrStrange

PS Back in the day, I think blue chips were high value chips.

meaning blues traditionally played as $10 or $100?

no idea why i was so curious about this or what weight it would have, but i went back and checked the cops game in rounders where they used these chips (well, a mix of "E" monogrammed chips and FDL chips).

there, the game was $20/40 stud and from what i could tell, they used whites as $1s (as evidenced by the antes), blues as $20s (as evidenced by mike calling out a $40 bet and throwing out 2 blues, and grays as $100s (as evidenced by mike saying he's up $4200 and eyeballing his stack count during the voiceover).

like i said, who knows what weight the scene might have, but it's one point of reference.

 

[DrStrange]

"Blue chip" stocks are the biggest, safest, "best" ones. Blue chips were your good ones.

DrStrange

 

[jbutler]

chipes arrive safe and sound today. i can't say the packing job was the paradigm of chip shipping practices, but it was effective. and they shipped in the original paperboard boxes (4 rows; 25 to a row; seen below) that are super thick and sturdy. no damage whatsoever.

final count
401 white
225 chocolate
225 blue
189 yellow
160 red

quick review: i love them. they look and feel very similar to ASMs smooth no mold, which i am obviously a fan of. the choc and blue look pretty close under any kind of suboptimal light, so i would probably not want them on the table at the same time. i will definitely be looking for more of these going forward. would love to expand the reds and whites.

 

[BGinGA]

chocolate blueberries.

Nice pickup, Jack. I'll keep an eye out for more.

 

[Ben]

Red: $.50 (make sure the number in play is minimal, so peeps don't slide out a stack out of habit.)

White: $2
Blue: $10
Yellow: $50
Choc: $200

 

[jbutler]

chocolate blueberries.

Nice pickup, Jack. I'll keep an eye out for more.

thanks Dave. very much appreciated - Dr Strange was very nice to send me a link earlier as well.

i think i'll most likely have to just gradually buy small lots. i was really lucky to be able to jump start with this big collection at the beginning.

 

[jbutler]

Red: $.50 (make sure the number in play is minimal, so peeps don't slide out a stack out of habit.)

White: $2
Blue: $10
Yellow: $50
Choc: $200

i would get fucking stabbed if i tried to tell the bunch of drunk mooks i play with that this was the chip structure. however, after i recuperated, the game would be a goldmine of people constantly betting the wrong amount.

 

[moose]

Blue fiddies
White 1
Chocolate fivers
Yellow 20s
Red hundos

 

[snooptodd]

The question is how to best use the above breakdown. I don't have enough of any single denom at this point to use them in a limit game (which would be my preferred use for chips of this vintage and design), so, being limited to big bet games, what values would you assign the above colors?

I've heard of people playing limit games with mixed colors being all the same value but have never tried it. I know t's probably sacriligious but you could do a modified version of that, making all but one color 1x and the other (I'd pick chocolate, though the good Dr's point in blue chips is a good one) 20x.

 

[jbutler]

the good news is that i've got a line on a bunch more. in total:

50 white
147 blue
50 red
148 yellow
83 green

the bad(ish) news is that it appears they don't exactly match. the new lot(s - they're from two, maybe three, different sellers) appear to all have a slightly darker tone in color and if you look closely at the FDL, you will notice that when compared to mine, they have a thicker horizontal bar and a fatter center petal on the flower. see the below pics for one of the lots. my understanding is that the others are the same.

i couldn't care less about the FDL itself being slightly different, but the different color tones would bug the heck out of me. i think i'm going to pick up the smaller of the lots available which also has the greens (and blues and yellows). that way, if the colors don't match, i can still use the greens since i don't have any for them to clash with.

any thoughts?

 

[DrStrange]

These types of chips are quite old. Time will weather some chips more // less than others. Don't be picky if the price is good.

DrStrange

PS The number of pre WWII chips hitting the market has spiked in a huge way. It feels like I have seen more on eBay in the last few weeks than the rest of the year.

 

[BGinGA]

fatter center petal

Deal-breaker, ldo.

 

[BGinGA]

With a 'standard' chip set, I'd totally agree with your color-tint matching issues putting me on tilt. But with these ancient beauties..... I don't think it would bother me in the least -- and actually add to the appeal of the set.

 

[jbutler]

With a 'standard' chip set, I'd totally agree with your color-tint matching issues putting me on tilt. But with these ancient beauties..... I don't think it would bother me in the least -- and actually add to the appeal of the set.

yeah i MIGHT be coming around to this way of thinking. of course, i might be influenced by the fact that there seem to be many more of the "version 2.0" chips available at the moment...

 

[Poker Zombie]

If the colors were off a hue, I'd be fine. If they were close enough that you were afraid they'd get confused if they were different values, I'd be fine.

Frac Blue
$1 White
$5 Red
$20 Yellow
$100 Chocolate

Continue to buy up sets, pair up the best-matching hues of each color until you have a completely usable set, and release the rest into the wild.

 

[jbutler]

a guy on the Chip Board was very generous in offering to send a sample set of the red/green/yellow chips at no charge so i could check out how the colors match. might also be doing the same with another seller who has the red. i wouldn't typically go through the trouble, but the price on these lots isn't as attractive as the price i got for my original purchase. hopefully they're close enough...

 

[jbutler]

Thanks again to a heads up from the Doc I have a line on enough reds to bring me up three full racks. Yum!

 

[jbutler]

Thanks again to a heads up from the Doc I have a line on enough reds to bring me up three full racks. Yum!

Just in the way of an update, I snagged these (this was the auction referenced in my eBay pricing thread). They're on the way and assuming they all arrive in one piece, my breakdown will now be:

225 chocolate (used as frac)
401 white (used as $1)
305 red (used as $5)
225 blue (used as $10 when playing micro-stakes or limit games and not using $5s)
189 yellow (used as $20)

When rounded down to racks, the "official" breakdown would be:

200 chocolate
400 white
300 red
200 blue
100 yellow

I've decided against the chips pictured above which are slight off-color, though I am trying to negotiate to buy just the 83 greens since I don't yet have any they would need to match. Will update again as I'm sure everyone is following this set on pins and needles

 

[stocky]

I'm sure everyone is following this set on pins and needles

 

[DrStrange]

Grats! Your build-out speed is remarkable.

DrStrange

 

[links_slayer]

Have you decided on denoms for each color yet? Too lazy to look back to see if you already have

 

[jbutler]

Grats! Your build-out speed is remarkable.

yeah as i mentioned, i was very lucky to find the huge lot at the beginning and further lucky this second lot of only reds came up. at this point i think things will come along at a much more gradual pace since i think i'll be restricting myself to the very particular version of the FDL chips (i.e., skinny middle flower and cross bar).

Have you decided on denoms for each color yet? Too lazy to look back to see if you already have

yeah, i don't really have a current game for which the set will work well, but i think i will have a game in the not-too-distant future for a group of very casual players more accustomed to the old style dealers choice home games (baseball, chase the bitch, guts, etc) along with a mix of more typical games (NLHE, stud, PLO, etc). in that game i'll use them as follows:

chocolate - $.25s
white - $1s
blue - $10s

being very, very amateurish, these guys will want to play cheap, so buy-ins will be $20 min, no max with .25/.50 blinds for big bet games and $1/$2 limits for the limit games.

in other games, in addition to the above values, i'll use:

red - $5
yellow - $20

as i mentioned above, i'd like to get a hold of those greens in which case i'll use those for $25s (obviously not at the same time the yellow $20s are on the table).

 

[jbutler]

well, there's good news and bad news. good news is the chips made it unharmed. the bad news is that i've discovered yet another variety of squared edged FDL paranoid chips with skinny center petal and cross bar that do not match my existing set. sigh.

the chips that arrived are fine chips, but lighter in weight and of a pretty clearly different material from the chips i already have. it's hard to explain (obv since we don't really know all the materials in any of the chips anyway), but the difference in feel and look is pretty obvious in person even if nearly undetectable in photos.

so the search continues...

 

[jbutler]

alright so i've got the 82 green chips coming my way. not positive i "need" them, but wtf right. now a question: i have the opportunity to complete the green rack, but i have to buy a bunch of other chips i don't need in order to do so.

i would be picking up 100 chips including 20 matching green and 80 others that i couldn't use with my set. problem: price is $60 plus shipping. blech. the price isn't horrid if they were all chips i could use/needed, but i don't know if i can bring myself to spend that on basically 20 chips.