FOILS
Firstly, the machine appears to be running ok but we are short on foil so are still sourcing/testing that.
Samples of gold & silver from the old ASM supplier turned out a little different and harder to use than we expected so we are awaiting some different samples to test.
We tested some colored foils also and found one type that works well so have ordered a small (in relative terms) amount of that type in red, blue & green.
MOLDS
We can't stamp adequately (or at all) on DSQ, HCE, FDL, NO MOLD, HOURGLASS or B-DIAMOND so those are not offered.
We won't know about DIECAR or SCROLL until they are next installed.
We can offer ACREST, HHR, CSQ & JOCKEY.
Keep in mind the central stampable area is smaller on some than others.
CHIP COLORS
We had some reservations about stamping gold on all colors (particularly lighter & dayglo ones) but all colors will work.
That said we don't recommend white or bright white purely because gold is very hard to see against them even though they stamp fine.
We will only stamp chips that we have freshly produced for specific orders. (ie we won't stamp previously made chips - by us or anyone else)
DIES
As I previously posted elsewhere we currently have 2 different alpha font sets, one numeric set and one denomination set. We are looking to buy another set in a more modern style that will give us letters, numbers, currency symbols & a few punctuation characters. Anything else would have to be custom ordered at the customers expense (and would remain their property). It is possible to just about stamp '10000' on an Amold (the biggest area) but it is tight.
When using the single character sets 4 is really the maximum width and with letters (which are slightly wider than the numerals) 3 max is best. Bear in mind you can't get the stamp perfectly centered on all chips so the more area is taken up with the stamp the more noticeable that will be. Rather like having a colored ring round the edge of an inlay.
PRICING
Custom dies have to be paid for by the customer at actual cost. For our size of dies that typically varies from $50-$100 per die.
Each stamping job and/or change of dies requires some setup. To try and come up with a formula which is fair for the extremes - ie a 5 x 100 chip order with different die on both sides of all 5 vs a 5000 chip order all on one die both sides, I've broken the pricing down as follows:
A fixed setup charge of $25
A charge for each subsequent die change of $10
A hot stamping charge of 13c per chip
We would hope to be in a position to be actually stamping orders from mid-Jan (although of course no-one placing an order right now is going to have their chips made by then anyway!) To put it another way, if you place a hotstamp order now then it won't be delayed due to any stamping issues, so go ahead.
I will show a few pics below now to illustrate most of the above and then add to this if I or anyone else thinks of things I've missed.
It is not always easy to get a good scan of gold foil, particularly when scanning multiple colors so you will have to believe me that all the stamps on the scans below are spot on
DENOM SET/ODD COLORS
This scan shows the full denom set we have. I posted a pic of some of the dies before. We managed to locate a full matching set of 13 pieces from 5c to $1000. They've been stamped on some of the colors we thought were trickier to stamp to show they work fine and save doing two tests. Also excuse them being off center, we didn't bother aligning the die 13 times to stamp out a couple of each only.
Here is an example showing the 10000 just fitting on the Amold and an example of the red foil.
Firstly, the machine appears to be running ok but we are short on foil so are still sourcing/testing that.
Samples of gold & silver from the old ASM supplier turned out a little different and harder to use than we expected so we are awaiting some different samples to test.
We tested some colored foils also and found one type that works well so have ordered a small (in relative terms) amount of that type in red, blue & green.
MOLDS
We can't stamp adequately (or at all) on DSQ, HCE, FDL, NO MOLD, HOURGLASS or B-DIAMOND so those are not offered.
We won't know about DIECAR or SCROLL until they are next installed.
We can offer ACREST, HHR, CSQ & JOCKEY.
Keep in mind the central stampable area is smaller on some than others.
CHIP COLORS
We had some reservations about stamping gold on all colors (particularly lighter & dayglo ones) but all colors will work.
That said we don't recommend white or bright white purely because gold is very hard to see against them even though they stamp fine.
We will only stamp chips that we have freshly produced for specific orders. (ie we won't stamp previously made chips - by us or anyone else)
DIES
As I previously posted elsewhere we currently have 2 different alpha font sets, one numeric set and one denomination set. We are looking to buy another set in a more modern style that will give us letters, numbers, currency symbols & a few punctuation characters. Anything else would have to be custom ordered at the customers expense (and would remain their property). It is possible to just about stamp '10000' on an Amold (the biggest area) but it is tight.
When using the single character sets 4 is really the maximum width and with letters (which are slightly wider than the numerals) 3 max is best. Bear in mind you can't get the stamp perfectly centered on all chips so the more area is taken up with the stamp the more noticeable that will be. Rather like having a colored ring round the edge of an inlay.
PRICING
Custom dies have to be paid for by the customer at actual cost. For our size of dies that typically varies from $50-$100 per die.
Each stamping job and/or change of dies requires some setup. To try and come up with a formula which is fair for the extremes - ie a 5 x 100 chip order with different die on both sides of all 5 vs a 5000 chip order all on one die both sides, I've broken the pricing down as follows:
A fixed setup charge of $25
A charge for each subsequent die change of $10
A hot stamping charge of 13c per chip
We would hope to be in a position to be actually stamping orders from mid-Jan (although of course no-one placing an order right now is going to have their chips made by then anyway!) To put it another way, if you place a hotstamp order now then it won't be delayed due to any stamping issues, so go ahead.
I will show a few pics below now to illustrate most of the above and then add to this if I or anyone else thinks of things I've missed.
It is not always easy to get a good scan of gold foil, particularly when scanning multiple colors so you will have to believe me that all the stamps on the scans below are spot on
DENOM SET/ODD COLORS
This scan shows the full denom set we have. I posted a pic of some of the dies before. We managed to locate a full matching set of 13 pieces from 5c to $1000. They've been stamped on some of the colors we thought were trickier to stamp to show they work fine and save doing two tests. Also excuse them being off center, we didn't bother aligning the die 13 times to stamp out a couple of each only.
Here is an example showing the 10000 just fitting on the Amold and an example of the red foil.
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