This upcoming Monday will mark 11 years since I ordered the 10-Chip Protege Clay Poker Chip Sample from Sidepot, so I figure it's about time that I posted some pics. When I first started chipping, I immediately admired the Protégé set. @EmptyPocs and @DrJohn had some outstanding pictures of their sets posted to Chiptalk, and I think most of those pics have also made it to PCF by now. I like the C&S mold, I like the Protégé design, I like the colors, I love the shaped inlays, and it has almost any denomination you could want. There were some barriers to starting a Protégé set though. There are a staggering number of variants, which @Joe Harris created a resource to track. The other issue was cost. New chips from Sidepot cost $1.39, although those who pre-ordered received slightly better pricing. That may not seem extravagant by today's standards, but allow me to put that in perspective. 10+ years ago, you could purchase a rack of mint, leaded, shaped-inlay THC Empress $5s for $60 on eBay.
Due to the then-high cost of new chips, I acquired almost all of my set on the secondary market. A day or two after receiving the 10 chip sample from Sidepot, I decided to purchase the set of supplemental denominations that @EmptyPocs had for sale. This was my first BCC set, and my first big chip purchase. @EmptyPocs could tell I was nervous about shipping such a significant value in chips, and put my mind at ease by telling me, and I quote:
Little did I know how routine it would become...
Over the next several years, I purchased a handful of sets on the CT and eventually PCF classifieds. At first my focus was on a cash set, and I tried to match the inlay style of the supplemental chips. Along the way I picked up some non-denomination chips from @EmptyPocs, some 25k and 100k chips from @Mango, and miscellaneous racks, cash sets, and tournament sets. I eventually got reasonably close to matching chips for my NL cash and tourney sets, although the $5 and $5k chips are still from a handful of variants. As is often the case with me, I didn't set out with the intent of creating limit sets, but somehow I accumulated enough chips for a few limit configurations if I'm willing to ignore mismatched variants. 10 years ago I would not have tolerated mixing variants, but it doesn't bother me so much anymore. If a casino or cardroom can use chips from different orders at the same time, why shouldn't I? The one exception is the oversized diameter chips. I will not have chips of different diameters for the same denomination in play at the same time.
This is probably far too much text for a showcase thread, but if you're interested in learning more about the Protégé set (and seeing some more pics!) you can check out The Protégé Thread in the Collector's Corner. Now on to the pics!
First up is my NL cash set. This is the set that I originally set out to build, and the $20 was critical to avoid re-using the $25 in cash and tournament sets. There are at least three variants of $5s in there, although only two variants are visible in the pic:
Next up is my 50c/$1 limit set. I didn't set out to build this set, but I actually really like it. With more quarters I could even expand it to $1/$2 limit.
I also have a $2/$4 limit set. I accidentally left two racks of $1s out of the pictures, but they still get the point across. I can use the $20 as the value chip if I really want to have a denomination on there, but I like it better with the orange ND chip:
I also have a $5/$10 limit set that could work for a short handed game. I'd love to add more $2.5 chips, but those things are hard to come by. @EmptyPocs was the only person with the foresight to preorder a significant quantity of them, and I was lucky enough to pick most of these up as part of my first real Protégé purchase:
This brings me to my supplemental cash set. 10+ years ago, bright colors weren't quite as popular as they are today, as evidenced by the design of the primary Protégé chips. The supplemental chips, on the other hand, openly embraced bright colors. Well, other than the $2, which isn't pictured here. I have some, but they don't really fit in anywhere. I prefer the $2.5 chip:
That's it for the denominated cash sets. Now it's on to the tournament sets. First up is a two table T10k set. I have enough chips to support additional tables, but that would require using the $5k chip. The $5k chip looks fine on its own, but I really don't like it as the highest value in the primary tournament set. Maybe someday I'll get some $5k plaques or something:
I don't like the $5k in the T10k set, but I really like it in the high denomination tournament set:
Three denominations is somewhat less than ideal for a tournament set, so I picked up some 500k plaques:
That covers the tournament sets, which brings us to my final set. I live in California, and I really like chip sets that use California colors. The denominated Protégé set may use standard Vegas colors, but I was able to piece together an almost functional California color non-denomination Protégé set. The ND white chips can be used as dimes, the ND red chips as quarters, the ND blue chips as $1s, and the ND black chips as $20s. I only have one rack of ND blue chips, but since the denominated blue chips are $1 I could easily mix those in. I only have a barrel of the ND black chips. @Joe Harris is the only other person that I know of who has any quantity of ND black chips; those things have wound up being harder to find than the $2.50 chips. California sets typically use yellow for the $5s. Although the ND orange Protégé chips look like arc yellow, I've always considered arc yellow to be much more of an orange than a yellow, and less than ideal for a California $5. When I reluctantly went to Sidepot in 2013 (after BCC had closed up shop) to purchase their remaining stock of ND orange chips to use as my California $5, I was stoked to receive this email response:
For fans of the Protégé line, I would like to apologize for this slow roll nine years in the making. I now present my ND California Cash Protégé set:
This post is my first attempt at using my camera properly, and I'd like to thank @Irish, @toothpic, @Eriks, and @Joe Harris for giving me some tips on how to take a photo. I even created an imgur account to be able to post less-compressed images. I didn't dare attempt any artistic shots, but here's a splashed pot pic to close out the post:
Due to the then-high cost of new chips, I acquired almost all of my set on the secondary market. A day or two after receiving the 10 chip sample from Sidepot, I decided to purchase the set of supplemental denominations that @EmptyPocs had for sale. This was my first BCC set, and my first big chip purchase. @EmptyPocs could tell I was nervous about shipping such a significant value in chips, and put my mind at ease by telling me, and I quote:
this is a pretty routine shipment for here
Little did I know how routine it would become...
Over the next several years, I purchased a handful of sets on the CT and eventually PCF classifieds. At first my focus was on a cash set, and I tried to match the inlay style of the supplemental chips. Along the way I picked up some non-denomination chips from @EmptyPocs, some 25k and 100k chips from @Mango, and miscellaneous racks, cash sets, and tournament sets. I eventually got reasonably close to matching chips for my NL cash and tourney sets, although the $5 and $5k chips are still from a handful of variants. As is often the case with me, I didn't set out with the intent of creating limit sets, but somehow I accumulated enough chips for a few limit configurations if I'm willing to ignore mismatched variants. 10 years ago I would not have tolerated mixing variants, but it doesn't bother me so much anymore. If a casino or cardroom can use chips from different orders at the same time, why shouldn't I? The one exception is the oversized diameter chips. I will not have chips of different diameters for the same denomination in play at the same time.
This is probably far too much text for a showcase thread, but if you're interested in learning more about the Protégé set (and seeing some more pics!) you can check out The Protégé Thread in the Collector's Corner. Now on to the pics!
First up is my NL cash set. This is the set that I originally set out to build, and the $20 was critical to avoid re-using the $25 in cash and tournament sets. There are at least three variants of $5s in there, although only two variants are visible in the pic:
Next up is my 50c/$1 limit set. I didn't set out to build this set, but I actually really like it. With more quarters I could even expand it to $1/$2 limit.
I also have a $2/$4 limit set. I accidentally left two racks of $1s out of the pictures, but they still get the point across. I can use the $20 as the value chip if I really want to have a denomination on there, but I like it better with the orange ND chip:
I also have a $5/$10 limit set that could work for a short handed game. I'd love to add more $2.5 chips, but those things are hard to come by. @EmptyPocs was the only person with the foresight to preorder a significant quantity of them, and I was lucky enough to pick most of these up as part of my first real Protégé purchase:
This brings me to my supplemental cash set. 10+ years ago, bright colors weren't quite as popular as they are today, as evidenced by the design of the primary Protégé chips. The supplemental chips, on the other hand, openly embraced bright colors. Well, other than the $2, which isn't pictured here. I have some, but they don't really fit in anywhere. I prefer the $2.5 chip:
That's it for the denominated cash sets. Now it's on to the tournament sets. First up is a two table T10k set. I have enough chips to support additional tables, but that would require using the $5k chip. The $5k chip looks fine on its own, but I really don't like it as the highest value in the primary tournament set. Maybe someday I'll get some $5k plaques or something:
I don't like the $5k in the T10k set, but I really like it in the high denomination tournament set:
Three denominations is somewhat less than ideal for a tournament set, so I picked up some 500k plaques:
That covers the tournament sets, which brings us to my final set. I live in California, and I really like chip sets that use California colors. The denominated Protégé set may use standard Vegas colors, but I was able to piece together an almost functional California color non-denomination Protégé set. The ND white chips can be used as dimes, the ND red chips as quarters, the ND blue chips as $1s, and the ND black chips as $20s. I only have one rack of ND blue chips, but since the denominated blue chips are $1 I could easily mix those in. I only have a barrel of the ND black chips. @Joe Harris is the only other person that I know of who has any quantity of ND black chips; those things have wound up being harder to find than the $2.50 chips. California sets typically use yellow for the $5s. Although the ND orange Protégé chips look like arc yellow, I've always considered arc yellow to be much more of an orange than a yellow, and less than ideal for a California $5. When I reluctantly went to Sidepot in 2013 (after BCC had closed up shop) to purchase their remaining stock of ND orange chips to use as my California $5, I was stoked to receive this email response:
For fans of the Protégé line, I would like to apologize for this slow roll nine years in the making. I now present my ND California Cash Protégé set:
This post is my first attempt at using my camera properly, and I'd like to thank @Irish, @toothpic, @Eriks, and @Joe Harris for giving me some tips on how to take a photo. I even created an imgur account to be able to post less-compressed images. I didn't dare attempt any artistic shots, but here's a splashed pot pic to close out the post:
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