Clay 10g Chip Sets (3 Viewers)

dmoore1998

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Hi Everyone,

I'm new and I'll apologize up front if this has been covered ad nauseum (as I expect a variant of this is most people's first thread but I had one heck of a time finding anything specific on this topic). I'm upgrading from the dice chip 49.99 specials I've played with since college and am pretty well overwhelmed at all the options for poker chips.

I've gotten some samples, and realized I really like the 10g clay chips best (I've spent most of my poker days in a casino or online, not in home games, and these chips feel the most familiar to me). Not a fan of the ceramics. To this point I've found Milano & Majestic feel great, but the color options leave a bit to be desired (specifically, the Majestic .25 & .50 are a little too close in color for the drunkards I'll be playing with at that level and the Milanos feel a bit drab in those denominations). Looking for chips in .25, .50, 1, 5, 10 denominations. Denominations on the chips are also important...again...drunk folks need all the help they can get.

Any other readily available 10g clays I should consider that have both the .25 & .50 denominations? I'm not concerned about price at all, but I'd like something fairly readily available. This is more "buy a set" than "build a dream set by searching nooks and crannies".

Thanks for all the help! If I know myself like I think I know myself, I'll likely end up obsessed and pouring way too much money into rare poker chips.
 
Hi, welcome in!

You typically won't use both 25c and 50c chips together at the same time (that's not to say you can't do this if you want to of course).
Typically chip values increase by 4x or 5x each time.

5c, 25c, $1, $5, $25

It's just as easy to throw in two 25c chips as it would be a 50c chip.
If you like the look and feel of the other Majestic chips, then just using the 25c chip and going straight up to $1 may be an option for you.
 
Most people, myself included, will recommend not having both 25¢ and 50¢ denoms. Each jump should be 4x to 5x the previous value.

If you still want to get both, you don’t have to put both in play at the same time to avoid confusion. You can play 25¢/25¢ or 25¢/50¢ w/quarters and 50¢/50¢ or 50¢/$1 with half-dollars.

Having both dollars and half dollars in play won’t be that efficient either, with $1 chips only double the 50¢, but it’s probably more tolerated than having both quarters and 50¢ in play.
 
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Most people, myself included, will recommend not having both 25¢ and 50¢ denoms. Each jump should be 4x to 5x the previous value.

If you still want to get both, you don’t have to put both in play at the same time to avoid confusion. You can play 25¢/25¢ or 25¢/50¢ w/quarters and 50¢/50¢ or 50¢/$1 with half-dollars.

Having both dollars and half dollars in play won’t be that efficient either, with $1 chips only double the 50¢, but it’s probably more tolerated than having both quarters and 50¢ in play.
This. I used to be squarely in the MOAR CHIPS ON THE TABLE camp, but over time, I've found that I don't like both 25c and 50c out there. WIth that said, I always try to build sets with both to be flexible. You can play 25c/25c or 25c/50c or 50c/$1.
 
I anticipated but didn't mention the .25/.50 cent issue in the interest of keeping the intro short. Yes, ideally I would skip the .50 and just use .25...or switch the game to .50/.50. That said, this is an established game and the people playing are both super casual but also fairly entrenched in how it goes. For example, the game switched to someone else's house, and everyone insisted that the colors of the chips must stay the same value as they did before, even though the new chips had denominations that didn't match up at all with the actual value (i.e. previously blue chips were .25 with no denoms, at the new place the blue chips had a $10 denom on them...but everyone insisted that they must be the quarter chips because "blue means quarter"...at which point chaos ensued when people got drunk). Eventually, we were able to make the change so that the denoms matched mostly...which was nice, but not necessarily a battle I'm dying to fight again.

The game is typically .25/.50 and everyone seems to LOVE...indescribably love really...throwing one chip in to limp.

Ideally I would run .25/1/5/10...but figured I'd at least see if anything was out there which might appease my masses without having to crack a folding chair over anyone's back to make them acquiesce.
 
Yes, to echo what others have said, I too came from the $.25, and $.50 chip camp, and they all talked me out of it and it’s been great! Less chips to count with drunkards - the better! My group is fine making the occasional change out of the blinds/antes as needed, and I’m sure your group will too.

Good luck and welcome!
 
Also, obviously if I decide to take a stand, more chip options open up if I don't need a .50.
 
I really like the 10g clay chips

To this point I've found Milano & Majestic feel great, but the color options leave a bit to be desired (specifically, the Majestic .25 & .50 are a little too close in color for the drunkards I'll be playing with at that level and the Milanos feel a bit drab in those denominations)
Welcome!

First, let me just say that the Majestics and Milanos are not actual clay chips. They are a composite unlike actual casino chips. Around here, they are referred to as "China clay". I have both types, and enjoy them, but they are not clay.

True clay chips are only made by two companies. Paulson (aka GPI aka Angel Group), does not sell to home gamers (there are other threads discussing why). The other is Classic Poker Chops (CPC). CPC doesn't feel exactly like Paulson's casino chips, but they are a lot closer than the China Clay.

Most China clay chips have slightly muted colors compared to casino chips. The colors can be brought out a little better by wiping a little mineral oil on the chip (very little, like one drop per 100 chips). There are also multiple threads discussing how to oil chips here, but beware to the thread claiming "Oiling done right". The first post is simply wrong.

China clay chips can be readily found here for a very good price, as people upgrade to Paulson (used casino chips) or custom CPCs. Use our vendors as well. They are all very forthcoming - because this group will call out an unscrupulous seller in a heartbeat.
 
This set has both fracs.
https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/940-foc-bcc-chips-price-drop.83217/post-1706675

They are real clay but lighter than 10 grams... I will have to weigh them when I get home, probably 8g if I had to guess.

They are more dense than Paulson chips and when new are very sharp and kind of annoying but they break in and then they are fantastic! Obviously fantasy chips, if you are going for a faux casino look then this wouldn't be for you, but they are very nice reasonably priced chips for the home market! I own a few
20200830_202140.jpg

Welcome to the forum @dmoore1998 there are a few other Iowa members around. I always suggest trying to get into one of these games and checking out lots of chips without having to pay for samples!

Good luck with the hunt!

Fellow Chipper Ben
 
It's actually probably easier to not care about price when you have no idea what you're doing. It seems...unlikely...that I'm going to randomly fall in love with a super expensive set given that I have no idea why the set would be so expensive/rare. Ditto for needing it to be relatively available...seems like typically the more expensive, the harder it is to hunt down and compile a complete set for most hobbies.

I have a history of sports card collecting...when I started out the flashy cheap stuff looked the coolest...it doesn't get expensive until you realize something is rare and you want it because of it's rarity. I'm not there yet with chips.
 
Welcome to the forum. I agree that you do not need .25 and .50 chips and your players should get used to that. I want to say that China Clay is a name fabricated by members of this and other chip forums for chips sold as clay that are injection molded instead of compression molded, and in truth are polymers, but so are the chips that are called compression molded ‘clay’ chips. In truth both types have very, very little, if any, clay in their formulas. So use your own judgement when deciding which chips you want to purchase by feel and looks, not by what we, as chip collectors try to push you towards. That is unless you really want to invest thousands of dollars in this hobby. Just keep your personal desires in the crosshairs of your search and best of luck in your quest.

Something rarely said around here - for a comparison - Playdoh is known as modeling clay - do you think there is really any clay in Playdoh?
 
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Some great information here, thanks so much! So all that said, if I decide to forego the .50 chips...any suggestions on the best clay-ish/feeling chip that's readily available in denoms of .25/1/5/25?

I see Majestic and Milano everywhere in retail settings...but I have no idea if those are higher end or simply nicer than stuff that's low end. I'm not opposed to buying on the secondary market, as long as I'm not searching the corners of the internet just to put a set together.
 
First you need to get samples and decide on your budget. Don’t rush, that just leads to wasted money.
 
First you need to get samples and decide on your budget. Don’t rush, that just leads to wasted money.
Yep, I've got samples of the 2 I mentioned (plus some others I didn't like as much). They feel/look fine. I just didn't know if there was anything nicer I should be considering. The .25 denomination seems to rule out most of the ones I've seen in the secondary market in obvious places like eBay (of course unless it says Paulson on it in eBay I have no idea what I'm really looking for anyways).

In terms of budget, I can't really imagine finding chips where $10+/chip has any noticeable difference to me at this point than $2-5/chip. I just don't know enough to probably appreciate the difference. Your point on wasted money is precisely what I'm trying to avoid. The Majestics seem fine to me...but if the consensus is that there are much better ones that are readily available...I'd like to at least grab a sample of those and see for myself.

I'm kind of at the point where I've gotten samples of the things that seem readily available in retail based on my limited ability to search. I like them, but I'm not in love with them...and trying to make sure I don't miss out on something obviously better simply because I didn't know to look for it.
 
It’s totally up to you. Are you satisfied with less expensive or obsessed with wanting what is considered the best or among the best? Cards mold ceramics are the present darlings of the less expensive world, I myself own several high end chip sets but recently acquired a set of China clay Royals that I’m very impressed by. My other sets cost much more than the Royals but after two games with them, not mentioning a word about cost or origin, my players have expressed a genuine like for them.
 
The Majestics seem fine to me...but if the consensus is that there are much better ones that are readily available...I'd like to at least grab a sample of those and see for myself.

I'm kind of at the point where I've gotten samples of the things that seem readily available in retail based on my limited ability to search. I like them, but I'm not in love with them...and trying to make sure I don't miss out on something obviously better simply because I didn't know to look for it.

Consensus on PCF? Stick around for a while, read a few threads and you’ll see how funny that statement is.

From the second paragraph I quoted, it sounds like you already know the answer. Stick around, get compression molded chip samples and peruse the classifieds. Use the search feature, ask questions, and find more tenured members to reach out to privately.

It can sometimes be a long journey to finding the right chip set, but it’s well worth it
 
Don't hesitate to ask questions or PM people that you think might have chips you desire to learn more about them. Most people around here are very helpful and friendly in my limited experience.

I've ended up with about a dozen sample sets of things to help guide me to getting my first big custom cash set, so like the above users said, take your time and find what you like.

Try to track down some samples of different chip types and see what you like out of clays, ceramics, china clays, etc. Not all are created equal and one thing somebody loves, you may hate and vice versa.
 
Most of the chips that most people consider the most desirable are both expensive and hard to acquire. TRKs, leaded THCs, BCCs. There's only so many of these around, they're mostly already in the hands of people who want to keep them, and when anyone does let them go they fetch very high prices.

Going down a tier or two in desirability, you can put together sets out of RHCs or solid and monogrammed THCs at only moderate expense and moderate difficulty. For slightly higher cost and effort, you can turn those sets into custom sets by milling and inlay replacement using custom-printed labels.

Plastic sets from Bud Jones, Matsui, B&G, and Abbiati are somewhere between those two levels, in desirability, expense, and difficulty.

After these three tiers, you have, essentially, everything else: a wide variety of ceramic chips, china clays, and mass-market plastics. They vary widely in price and desirability, but they are all quite affordable and readily available. In most cases you can order them from a retail site; in a few cases you have to place some custom orders.

And finally, there's CPCs. These are roughly as desirable as the highest tier (although that's easily debated), are somewhat less expensive than the highest tier but more expensive than all the rest, are readily available as long as you can be patient (ordering them is easy but they take months to be manufactured and delivered), and are customized to your own design unless you pick a stock set (stock sets are also faster and cheaper to get).

All of these types of chips look and feel very different from each other. Most people have their preferences, but in my opinion All Chips Are Good. It's quite likely you'll have preferences too, which is why you should get samples, but you may well find yourself perfectly satisfied with chips that are lower in cost and easier to get hold of. And they all will play poker just fine - even dice chips.



That's sort of the ten-second overview of the chipping world in terms of what you might like, how much it might cost, and how much trouble you'll have to go through. Hopefully that'll get you started. Browse the forum at random, read stuff, and use the search function when you come across a term or product or brand that sounds like it might interest you.

You might find these introductory posts helpful as well:

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

Good luck, and welcome to the forum!
 

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