Sorry for the delay in getting this posted here, but Wednesday was a crazy day....
Very glad to see David Spragg provide some definitive information on the subject of the unicorn mold and chips (and reversing his previous stance from a month earlier). I did a lot of extensive research late Tuesday night, and David's latest response backs up everything I dug up.... all of which led to the chips in question having been produced with Burt Co. equipment, but after it had been sold by Alonzo Burt.
Some background info and timelines are included below, along with occasional possible reasons for the confusion and mid-stream changes of opinion by various experts about all this (all pieced together from a variety of sources, and believed to be pretty accurate):
- The unicorn mold was owned by Marion & Co. in NY, who used it to produce and sell injection-molded chips during the 1980s and beyond (and possibly earlier). I cannot find proof of an earlier ownership, but that does not discount the possibility. There are indeed samples of injection-molded unicorn chips sold by Marion from this time period, as noted by Robert Eisenstadt.
- John Kendall, a manager at Burt Company, bought the company in 1985. He subsequently started Chipco International, and.sold the Burt Co. molds and other equipment and assets in 1988.
- Jim Blanchard was the production manager at Burt Company, and using the Burt Company assets purchased from Kendall, founded Atlantic Standard Molding (ASM) in 1988 -- continuing on the long tradition of the old Burt Company and making clay chips.
- The unicorn mold was not one of those assets, so it makes sense that Jim Blanchard was unaware of any clay chips ever having been produced using that mold (he was the production manager at Burt Co, and certainly would have been aware of it's use had it happened during his time at Burt Co.).
- The unicorn mold was likely sold (or usage licensed) by Marion & Co. to John Kendall sometime between 1985 and 1988. As David Spragg noted, the mold was used by John Kendall to produce clay chips, prior to being converted back to injection-mold use by Chipco International.
It is my (unconfirmed) belief that Kendall produced clay chips on the unicorn mold while still in possession of the Burt Co assets (1985-1988), and stockpiled those chips to be sold later (with hot-stamping added later as needed). This would explain how hot-stamped clay unicorn cash checks were sold to Opera House in 1991, and much later,
hot-stamped clay unicorn tournament chips were supplied to the same casino in 2001 (long after the assets required to produce them had been sold, and also long after the unicorn mold had been converted back to plastic injection-molding used to produce Chipco plastic unicorn chips).
I'm not sure where I can go to verify that last part. It's unlikely that any of the current GOCC employees were at Chipco back then (or more likely, pre-Chipco). Marion Co. rarely provides historical information to outsiders, and unfortunately, John Kendall is not easily available for comment these days.
The unicorn mold is currently offered as an injection-molded plastic chip by Game On Chip Company (founded by ex-employees of now-defunct Chipco International). It has also been offered as a ceramic chip blank relief marking since 2013 by Palm Gaming International, who purchased many of the Chipco assets when the company was dissolved.
Side note: Opera House was a Burt Company customer (HHR chips), and much later, a Chipco customer with many different ceramic designs ordered from 1995-2002. Makes sense that they would have ordered the interim clay unicorn chips from John Kendall, too -- both the 1991 chips and the tourney set in 2001.
* sources for the above include online documentation provided by David Spragg, Jim Blanchard, Allan Myers, Dave Harber, Robert Eisestadt, and content on pokerchipforum.com, and chiptalk.net.