I have been meaning to document my CDI98 set building journey and post some pics ever since I finished the rack of shaped inlay $5s. I really regret not getting it done before the untimely passing of @allforcharity because Berny certainly played a role in my adventure. As everyone knows, Berny was an avid fan of CDI chips, James Bond, and an incredible contributor to the site, so this post is also partly a memoriam to him and the chips he loved so much. I will miss our interactions and I hope his personal collection ends up in the hands of folks who treasure it as much as he did.
My personal journey began soon after joining PCF. Like many, I came here via google search for the "best custom poker chips" or something similar...lol. I wanted to upgrade my league from the dice chips we had been using for over a decade and wanted to have customs made specifically for our poker league. After joining PCF, my eyes were opened to the wide world of chips and, before I knew it, I had placed an order with CPC for the Sazerac Room set. There was a problem though.
The CPC chips were not due to arrive for at least 6 months. I had been bitten by the chipping bug. What the heck was I going to do in the meantime? As always, there were various options for sale but I wanted a nice set of readily available, leaded, THC chips I could get into play as soon as possible. Easy Peasy, right? LOL, yeah I was new.
I looked at options and, in large part, based upon price, availability, looks and seeing Berny's posts about them, decided CDI98s were the way to go so I put up a wanted ad:
https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/cdi-98-set.85942/#post-1763730
As you can see, a bunch of the CDI98 folks jumped in and pointed me towards a set that was on sale at Spinnetti's. I ultimately decided to grab my wallet and jump off the cliff so I could have a "temporary" set of chips to "tide me over" until my CPC customs arrived. Little did I know a multi-year journey was about to begin.
I was so happy when my chips arrived that I posted a picture of them in someone's CDI thread.
Here is the set I started with:
After posting this picture, I was almost immediately contacted by multiple CDI98 collectors. I had no idea when I made the purchase, but I had inadvertently stumbled my way into buying a set of CDI98s that contained 18 of the hardest to find chips, the relatively rare, shaped inlay $5. Berny and others reached out with trade and purchase offers, etc. I worked a few deals but retained a good number of the original shaped $5s. At some point I decided I wanted to try to complete a full rack of them. Berny told me at the time he had only ever been able to get close to having a single barrel, so I did not give myself much of a chance.
I also had a lot of work ahead of me with just the regular chips because I decided I needed to make this a combination cash/tournament set. I needed fracs, more $25s, $100s, $500s, and 1Ks, all the while also keeping an eye out for more of those shaped $5s (and also, after learning there were shaped $25s/$100s/$500s, those were added to the list...why make things easy?).
My chipping adventure then began in earnest. Through it I have met a lot of folks, both on and off forum, who helped out along the way. @doublebooyah85 was also searching for some or all of the same chips I was at the time, and that probably cost us each a bit of money we would not have spent but for the competition...lol. Ultimately, we combined forces and helped each other achieve our respective goals in building out our own sets.
I also ran across someone who had an actual movie prop chip from License to Kill!!!!!! What the hell, you must be kidding me. That blew my mind. I knew of those chips of course, and had seen the terrible photos of them online, but the thought of ever having the chance to actually own one was a pipe dream.
Well, I jumped on that opportunity and purchased a gorgeous $10 unicorn:
The movie prop chip was fantastic. Red ink on the shaped inlay. Deep red coloring, arc yellow and gold spots, just fantastic. Of course by the time I was able to buy this, I knew there were other prop chips out there which had been made for the movie including denominated $50/$100/$500 chips and 6 solid NCV roulette chips. I always kept my eyes out for them but they are as hard or harder to find as the shaped inlay $5s.
In a stroke of luck, I did happen to find a seller in the wild who had some, was I interested? Yes, yes I was very much interested. Before I knew it these beauties had been added to the collection:
These prop chip photos are the ones I really wish I had had a chance to share with Berny. I know he would have loved to see them in some high-res photos and would have been happy they made it into the collection of a fellow PCF'er (minus the $500 subsequently lost in a terrible bet...lol). So I am still hunting for a $100/$500 movie prop if anyone happens to have them laying around somewhere.
More surprising to me was that I was able to find almost all of the movie prop chips before finishing up a rack of shaped inlay $5s. I had continued to keep my eyes peeled, send messages, scour the internet and look for those darn things everywhere. Then, with a major assist from @doublebooyah85, a huge score was located and that rack was filled!
With the completion of the rack of $5s, my CDI98 travels are largely at an end. I am still looking for the two missing movie props, would love to get at least a single of the recently disclosed white IHC, a blaze $10, and the cog $25 that got away from me on eBay, but for the most part my set is complete.
In addition to the full rack of shaped inlay $5s, my set has at least a rack of all of the other shaped inlay denominations, radiant red $5s, $1s that all match, and the low and high end of the set plus relabeled fuchsia $5ks.
You saw where I started, this is pretty close to where it is ending:
Hope you enjoyed the story and thanks again to everyone who helped me on this journey. Berny, rest in peace my friend. We miss you around here.
Also, thank you Mr. Bond, for commissioning these awesome chips.
My personal journey began soon after joining PCF. Like many, I came here via google search for the "best custom poker chips" or something similar...lol. I wanted to upgrade my league from the dice chips we had been using for over a decade and wanted to have customs made specifically for our poker league. After joining PCF, my eyes were opened to the wide world of chips and, before I knew it, I had placed an order with CPC for the Sazerac Room set. There was a problem though.
The CPC chips were not due to arrive for at least 6 months. I had been bitten by the chipping bug. What the heck was I going to do in the meantime? As always, there were various options for sale but I wanted a nice set of readily available, leaded, THC chips I could get into play as soon as possible. Easy Peasy, right? LOL, yeah I was new.
I looked at options and, in large part, based upon price, availability, looks and seeing Berny's posts about them, decided CDI98s were the way to go so I put up a wanted ad:
https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/cdi-98-set.85942/#post-1763730
As you can see, a bunch of the CDI98 folks jumped in and pointed me towards a set that was on sale at Spinnetti's. I ultimately decided to grab my wallet and jump off the cliff so I could have a "temporary" set of chips to "tide me over" until my CPC customs arrived. Little did I know a multi-year journey was about to begin.
I was so happy when my chips arrived that I posted a picture of them in someone's CDI thread.
Here is the set I started with:
After posting this picture, I was almost immediately contacted by multiple CDI98 collectors. I had no idea when I made the purchase, but I had inadvertently stumbled my way into buying a set of CDI98s that contained 18 of the hardest to find chips, the relatively rare, shaped inlay $5. Berny and others reached out with trade and purchase offers, etc. I worked a few deals but retained a good number of the original shaped $5s. At some point I decided I wanted to try to complete a full rack of them. Berny told me at the time he had only ever been able to get close to having a single barrel, so I did not give myself much of a chance.
I also had a lot of work ahead of me with just the regular chips because I decided I needed to make this a combination cash/tournament set. I needed fracs, more $25s, $100s, $500s, and 1Ks, all the while also keeping an eye out for more of those shaped $5s (and also, after learning there were shaped $25s/$100s/$500s, those were added to the list...why make things easy?).
My chipping adventure then began in earnest. Through it I have met a lot of folks, both on and off forum, who helped out along the way. @doublebooyah85 was also searching for some or all of the same chips I was at the time, and that probably cost us each a bit of money we would not have spent but for the competition...lol. Ultimately, we combined forces and helped each other achieve our respective goals in building out our own sets.
I also ran across someone who had an actual movie prop chip from License to Kill!!!!!! What the hell, you must be kidding me. That blew my mind. I knew of those chips of course, and had seen the terrible photos of them online, but the thought of ever having the chance to actually own one was a pipe dream.
Well, I jumped on that opportunity and purchased a gorgeous $10 unicorn:
The movie prop chip was fantastic. Red ink on the shaped inlay. Deep red coloring, arc yellow and gold spots, just fantastic. Of course by the time I was able to buy this, I knew there were other prop chips out there which had been made for the movie including denominated $50/$100/$500 chips and 6 solid NCV roulette chips. I always kept my eyes out for them but they are as hard or harder to find as the shaped inlay $5s.
In a stroke of luck, I did happen to find a seller in the wild who had some, was I interested? Yes, yes I was very much interested. Before I knew it these beauties had been added to the collection:
These prop chip photos are the ones I really wish I had had a chance to share with Berny. I know he would have loved to see them in some high-res photos and would have been happy they made it into the collection of a fellow PCF'er (minus the $500 subsequently lost in a terrible bet...lol). So I am still hunting for a $100/$500 movie prop if anyone happens to have them laying around somewhere.
More surprising to me was that I was able to find almost all of the movie prop chips before finishing up a rack of shaped inlay $5s. I had continued to keep my eyes peeled, send messages, scour the internet and look for those darn things everywhere. Then, with a major assist from @doublebooyah85, a huge score was located and that rack was filled!
With the completion of the rack of $5s, my CDI98 travels are largely at an end. I am still looking for the two missing movie props, would love to get at least a single of the recently disclosed white IHC, a blaze $10, and the cog $25 that got away from me on eBay, but for the most part my set is complete.
In addition to the full rack of shaped inlay $5s, my set has at least a rack of all of the other shaped inlay denominations, radiant red $5s, $1s that all match, and the low and high end of the set plus relabeled fuchsia $5ks.
You saw where I started, this is pretty close to where it is ending:
Hope you enjoyed the story and thanks again to everyone who helped me on this journey. Berny, rest in peace my friend. We miss you around here.
Also, thank you Mr. Bond, for commissioning these awesome chips.
Congratulations!! If you have made it this far, you have cracked the code for the 007 Giveaway. To celebrate the CDI journey, I will be giving away a CDI98 chip sampler to the winner of the giveaway contest. Please keep the giveaway a secret so that only super spies will know of its existence until it is revealed. I will leave entries open until December 15th and then will determine the winner via random drawing.
In order to enter all you need to do is post a picture of your own CDI chip or set in the comments or your favorite bond girl, villian or Bond. Remember, don't mention the giveaway in your posts! Thanks for playing.
In order to enter all you need to do is post a picture of your own CDI chip or set in the comments or your favorite bond girl, villian or Bond. Remember, don't mention the giveaway in your posts! Thanks for playing.
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