Bull Dog Chips (1 Viewer)

[DuffCal]

I have a very old set of 'BULL DOG' chips that have been in my family for years. They were actually my father's, uncle's chips. I was curious if anyone could provide any info on these? They appear to be real clay but I am not 100% sure.

They did make me think of @ChaosRock custom set.

It did get me thinking it would be cool to have 'remakes' created from CPC...

 

[Omar65]

As a UGA graduate and huge fan, those rock. No idea of the history on them but it would be cool to know. Great case also and awesome family heirloom.

 

[CrazyEddie]

These chips were probably made by the US Playing Card Company, probably somewhere between the early and middle 20th century. They are engraved chips. They are probably made of a material that at the time was variously called "composition" or "clay composition", which we would now call a composite of shellac, clay, and various other stuff. That was a forerunner to modern clay chips, which use plastic instead of shellac.

You can see examples of this chip and similar engraved chips produced by USPCC here: http://chipguide.themogh.org/cg_uspc_pix.php?id=Samples-Engraved-1 and http://chipguide.themogh.org/cg_uspc_pix.php?id=Samples-Engraved-2

These types of chips were sold to the general public as a stock design, rather than being custom-ordered by a particular club or individual.

Engraved chips like this turn up on eBay regularly, but usually in small lots of odd chips - by the singles, handfuls, or dozens. You don't often see them in playable quantities like you have here.

 

[CrazyEddie]

USPCC also made other engraved designs not included in the two pages I linked above. They're referred to as "Paranoid Engraved". Paranoid is a material similar to composition, but using a plastic similar to celluloid instead of shellac. The fact that USPCC referred to these other chips separately is why I think that the bulldog design and the rest there were made from a shellac composite while the Paranoid chips were made from a celluloid composite.

 

[DuffCal]

Thanks for the info @CrazyEddie ! I have had these for quite some time and it is nice to finally know a little about them. I feel like I was just on the Antique Road Show!