Chip ID Please (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Drewski
- Start date
rimmerryan
Flush
This is definitely an older mold... but not ASM.
This is the Small Greek Key mold. Made by BC Wills & Co. in 2 different locations [MI & NV] back between the 30s & 60s.
The "B" marking is probably too generic to determine where it was made for unless you have more information or an order receipt from back then.
Price... by itself, $3 maybe.
In quantity... 40¢ - $1 each, depending on quantity, colors, inserts, etc.
This is the Small Greek Key mold. Made by BC Wills & Co. in 2 different locations [MI & NV] back between the 30s & 60s.
The "B" marking is probably too generic to determine where it was made for unless you have more information or an order receipt from back then.
Price... by itself, $3 maybe.
In quantity... 40¢ - $1 each, depending on quantity, colors, inserts, etc.
You will never get that home-made edge spot ink out.
Jeevansluck
Royal Flush
It looked like spray paint or something of the like but I wasn't sure.
Home-made, you say?
Someone took a felt marker to that. I remember there's a case full of chips, would have been okay except for the vandalism.
Nice chip! Looks pretty old, probably from the 40's or early 50s. A lot of the older small keys with alpha or initial hot stamps were used in underground or illegal clubs and are very difficult to identify without distributor records. As an FYI BC Wills chips were made by Burt & Co, which then became ASM, then CPC. BC Wills, probably did the hot stamping though. As far as the inserts, it looks like ink or paint, but hard to really tell without seeing it in person. The earlier clay insert chips, the inserts were not exactly "sharp" or uniform. Here are a few examples that i have in my collection. Good luck!
shortstaffed
Waiting List
I bought this set. Superb insight, gmunny. The few inserts are definitely not sharpied / drawn-on but they are certainly uneven. One can completely understand allforcharity 's mistake, especially with the crummy craigslist photos. Colors were way off, too. I posted some other pics in the intro section, as it was y'all who helped me decide to meet up and purchase this set, which is proving to be pretty playable. https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/thank-you-all-for-the-help.61915/
Nice chip! Looks pretty old, probably from the 40's or early 50s. A lot of the older small keys with alpha or initial hot stamps were used in underground or illegal clubs and are very difficult to identify without distributor records. As an FYI BC Wills chips were made by Burt & Co, which then became ASM, then CPC. BC Wills, probably did the hot stamping though. As far as the inserts, it looks like ink or paint, but hard to really tell without seeing it in person. The earlier clay insert chips, the inserts were not exactly "sharp" or uniform. Here are a few examples that i have in my collection. Good luck!
Wow, thanks for the clarification. I was fooled by the unevenness.
Jeff in Iowa
Pair
By the way, I think it's very possible that these chips were made by the United States Playing Card Co., rather than the Burt Co. The USPC Co. made chips on the Small Key mold (owned by B. C. Wills & Co.) beginning in 1934 until they transferred the mold to the Burt Co. around 1947, and stopped making clay composition chips. USPC was the first company to produce chips with edge spots, which they did by the late 1930s, and their first attempts were kind of messy as Gmunny points out.
The case those chips came in with the Bakelite nobs on the trays, also kind of seems to me to be from the late 1930s or early 1940s, more so than the late 1940s or 1950s. Overall, a very cool find.
Below is the very first Small Key order card in the USPC Co. records, from 1934. They only kept records for inlaid chips, so the records for your chips won't be in their archives. Your chips were probably hot stamped by the B. C. Wills Co. for their customer.
The case those chips came in with the Bakelite nobs on the trays, also kind of seems to me to be from the late 1930s or early 1940s, more so than the late 1940s or 1950s. Overall, a very cool find.
Below is the very first Small Key order card in the USPC Co. records, from 1934. They only kept records for inlaid chips, so the records for your chips won't be in their archives. Your chips were probably hot stamped by the B. C. Wills Co. for their customer.
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CrazyEddie
Full House
Wow, great info, Jeff! I'm curious about your sources - this kind of stuff is hard to find on the internet these days; I'm guessing a lot of that knowledge got lost (except in the minds of the members) when Chiptalk died.
You can find the USPC records on the ChipGuide, which is the most amazing resource for us chip hounds!
http://chipguide.themogh.org/cg_uspc_list.php
Jeff in Iowa
Pair
Howard Herz wrote an excellent history on the B. C. Wills company, which has some excellent information about the history of the Small Key and Large Key molds which they owned until the late 1980s. He tracked down the last owners of the company in the early1990s, apparently only a couple years or so after they had destroyed the record cards for their chips sales during the last 50 years. The article can be found here; http://ccgtcc-ccn.com/wills.pdf
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Howard H (aka Howdy) is like the Godfather of Chips!! He wrote many great articles back in the day.
shortstaffed
Waiting List
Sheesh. Please don't post stuff like this at 9 PM... spent hours last night looking at that unbelievable archive when I should have been sleeping.
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