AMA: I just recieved a custom ceramic set from Sun-fly. (1 Viewer)

JustinInMN

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So I took delivery of my Free River Club: Edition 2020 ceramics on Friday.

I do want to give credit to @MegaTon44 for helping me through the process of working with Sun-fly when I had questions come up with the Free River Club: Edition 2020 set. So I thought I would share my timeline and experience with this in case anyone wants to make an order for themselves and I will answer any questions I can.

Doing business with Sun-Fly over e-mail works pretty well. My contact ended up being "Amy" who I assume is different than the famous "Susie" with whom other PCF's have worked. But I find her very helpful. The factory is in China is 14 hours ahead of Central Time, so would tend to get responses between 9pm and 5am my time. It's kind of fun to get these e-mails left overnight, but I always tried to respond if they hit before my bedtime.

1) Initial e-mail 2 Dec and 3 Dec

So the first attempt to reach out was to the info@sun-fly.com e-mail address I found on their website. Well turns out that's a dead address, don't do that. The next day I just submitted an inquiry to their contact form. The next day I received a response from "Amy." Start your inquiry via the form with confidence.

2) Contact with Amy 4 Dec

She confirms pricing at 0.60/pc for face-aligned Polyinno. She tells me these ship efficiently in cartons of 400 or 800. I send her the designs at this point and plan to decide on 1600, 2000, or 2400 pending my final analysis of the breakdown. Here are the shipping quotes she provides.
1600pcs: USD 296;
2000pcs: USD 320;
2400pcs: USD 340;
4000pcs: USD 480

They also make no mention about any minimum per denomination. I did only order 25 of the 100 denom.

3) Recieve final invoice, 5 Dec

After finalizing the breakdown, they finalize the invoice and request payment by international wire.

Invoice.JPG


4) Wire sent from my bank, 9 Dec

Now I ended up having to make two trips to my credit union to set up the international wire. China is on the list of countries that are deemed "risky" recipients at my bank. But knowing others have come before me, I am not dissuaded. However, there were some additional details not provided on the invoice. My advice is to just take the time to go to your bank ahead of time and ask for the details they need to process an international wire and provide that to your sun-fly contact. It went smoother once I had definitive answers from sun-fly the second time.

5) First prototypes, 10 Dec

Sun-fly wastes no time and I have my first set of prototypes

DarkPrototypeEdge.jpg
DarkPrototypeFace.jpg


Now the first prototypes expose a particular issue with the dye-sublimation process. Basically using dark colors at the edge of the face will bleed on the rolling edge. Doing aligned-edge design will hide this issue, but that wasn't my design. The second plan was to do a small solid ring of the base color around the face. I really like how this works and I am ready to green light the prototypes.

6) Prototypes approved, 12 Dec

After correcting the issues above, I make my approval

7) Chips complete and tracking number provider, 17 Dec

Well that was fast. Also I never tracked a package all the way from China before, it was kind of fun.

Tracking.JPG


8) Chips arrive, 20 Dec

Though it's quite the source of anxiety for UPS to post the expected delivery date of Fr, 20 Dec and then not deliver until 7pm :). But all is well when I get to unboxing.

A little extra advice here. They cover everything in tape, these things are packed incredibly well, but make sure to be patient and have time to unpack. A lot of tape to cut :).

Boxes taped.JPG
IMG_20191220_214632164.jpg


I just put on "The Cincinnati Kid" (presently on Netflix) while unboxing and racking. Took almost the whole movie to finish :). (Though I did stop for some pictures and stacking seven barrels comfortably on top of each other. The 8th barrel is the line where it falls, apparently.)

So bottom line, 17 days from first contact to delivery. Shockingly fast. Eight days from approving prototypes to delivery.

If you have other questions feel free to ask.
 
The dye sub issue or wraparound blow over is pretty bad with those chips. The hybrids with the 28.5mm label recess are much better but still an inevitable issue of the process. Gotta say, the design is quite neat. Would have loved to see them with aligned spots. Nice job.
 
Thanks :),

I could have done aligned spots, but I was worried it would make the rolling edges too similar with each other (like the GPI promo pseduo-paulsons) since I had to use the face spots for the denominations instead of the inlay.

Granted, the edges as I designed are still one basic pattern, but I liked using the different shapes on the edges, and the edge shapes do look better than the pictures.
 
How many chips sets do you own, and what are the makes/models?

So the sun-fly hybrids are definitely the best set I own. I have 2000, but I am reserving 150 for extras/sample sets.
I have 900 Hideway Chipco ceramics
I have 300 ParadisePoker.com chipco ceramics
I have 800 ABS 8 stripe semi-custom from the first Free River Club set
I have 600 of the Brybelly 2-stripe twist for a tournament set.
And I am working on tournament labels for the 8v China Clay Clearance sale that @ABC Gifts and Awards had last year.

Some of these may show up in the classifieds soon :).
 
I had the exact same perfect customer experience with them. I was also served by Amy (and Susie, her backup while Amy was on holidays).

And they will just write the amount you want on the custom form. ;)

And... Congratulations for you set ! These PolyInno are really top and are so different from any other ceramic. You chose the perfect combo (43mm and 25mm labels). They feel good, weight good, they are not slippery and they shuffle very easily.

Haven't you ordered a dealer button ?

For anyone who wants to test them before ordering a full set, I'm selling 2 test barrels.

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/thre...rels-still-available.49817/page-2#post-955119
 
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And they will just write the amount you want on the custom form. ;)

That question didn't come up actually. Guess that should be something onnwhichbI should have been watching.

The difficulty with my bank was they couldn't figure out the "beneficiary" from the invoice and they were expecting am individual name. Maybe there was a misunderstanding that I was doing the wire for goods instead of an individual? The bank provided me a list of detail they needed and Amy obliged and it went without a hitch the next day. So my advice is figure out the details you need from your bank and then you can tell your bank this is what the recipient wants the wire to show and it should go smoother.

You chose the perfect combo (43mm and 25mm labels). They feel good, weight good, they are not slippery and they shuffle very easily

Well I was hooked on both the Mayfair sample and the Mountain to sample. And also, since the photo inlay was the design, the extra real estate on the outer ring for the other design elements was helpful. This would not have worked at all on 39mm chips, more on the 43mm with 28mm inlay.

I am very pleased with how they shuffle, but it does take a bit of getting used to the larger size.


Haven't you ordered a dealer button ?

This may be sacrilege, but I prefer plain dealer buttons to designed ones. I just think it's easier to spot the dealer button at a glance. If I ever change my mind on that, I figure that's a job I can send to Gene at ABC. :)

And congrats on your set too @Kid_Eastwood , I may not have been following your design as closely, but I am really glad it turned out well for you.
 
For the payment I used PayPal.
I see in your invoice that they filled the company name. That's maybe why you had some troubles.
 
For the payment I used PayPal.
I see in your invoice that they filled the company name. That's maybe why you had some troubles.

Oh man, I totally would have done PayPal if they suggested it. Wire transfers are $50 from here :). I also noted your set was considerably smaller than 1000pcs which is what they told me the minimum order was. (Not that it was a problem for me, I was always going to go for 1500-2500 :).)
 
I also used PayPal and only ordered 600 chips. Anyway, my transaction went flawless and very fast as well.
 
This is a great info thread on SunFly. A lot of questions out there on ordering/pricing, and you nailed all the FAQs. I'm planning on a hybrid set this year and this helped me a lot.

Amazing how fast the Chinese companies can get product in hand...I'll come back to this thread a few times through my own process.

Thanks for posting this!
 
@JustinInMN did they give you a price for aligned 39mm in any of their communications?

I recently asked them and here're the quotes I got :

1. PolyInno chip 39mm(with 2 dia)

HB001A/HB002A: USD 0.56/PC

2. PolyClay chip:

CB001A/CB002A/CB003A/CB004A: USD 0.484/PC

The quotes are for aligned chips. So only 4c difference with 43mm...
 
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I recently asked them and here're the quotes

Awesome, thanks for posting!!

I did not actually ask because I was pretty set on the 43mm hybrids being exactly what I wanted.

But I did find they are actually quite responsive to their contact form. If you ask over the weekend, I am sure the will get to you on Monday. (Maybe even Sunday night given the time difference ;).)

https://www.sunflycasinochips.com/pokerchips-contact.html
I'm planning on dialing in some graphic stuff and hitting that form soon
 

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