But what's the story with J Finney's in the Baja?
Oh, gotcha.
When I was building my mixed-inlay custom set, I built inlays for key moments in my poker life. Baja being where I was introduced to poker. I grew up in San Diego and, for years as a kid, we'd caravan as part of a large father/son group down to this remote beach on the baja peninsula for spring break, near La Bufadora, the second largest blowhole in the world. My father would bust us out of school, we'd hop in an RV and head down, stopping at Hussong's Cantina and the Corona factory in Ensenada. We stayed on the water next to this partially constructed and abandoned hotel complex on the beach... the concrete poured before it folded. One year, the dads hired a mariachi band and grilled a trash bag full of fresh baja lobsters. We'd hit the water, chase each other around the sand-filled concrete cabañas on the beach (avoiding scorpions), run through the big hotel and the a grand dome-capped ballroom where we'd light fire crackers, and at night, the dads would play poker with cheap bicycle plastic chips while drinking beer. It was awesome. Construction started again at the resort, eventually becoming the Baja Beach and Tennis Club, so we moved on to another spot. Legal issues killed it (
it's for sale), and it's falling apart. The areas's built up over the years and isn't nearly as remote or cool as it used to be.
As for the name... I wanted something that harkened back to the pre-depression Mexican resorts, like
Jack Dempsey's resort in Ensenada, but also worked as an illegal club during the 60s, even if gambling was outlawed in Mexico. Simple inlay and simple name. J. Finney is a family name- Joseph being my great grand father (and great uncle who was like a second father to me); Finney being the maiden name of my great great grandmother (Joseph was her 2nd husband, the first died early). There's more to both of the names, but the Irish feel (even if I affiliate with the more obvious Scottish side given my name) and simplicity made it an easy and obvious choice for me.
Either way, as the frac on the mixed set or as a second stand-alone set, it makes me smile.
I really like the theme with the retro lavender, imperial, blue and yellow. Not sure about the orange but if the spots are worked out I may like it. I lean more towards chocolate or maybe maroon?
Yeah.... that's where I'm leaning towards. I really like the old Stardust lav/yellow $5, but it complicates the larger set. I think the orange with the 14 spots and inlay would look nice. I've seen several hot stamp with that combo (and blue foil) that look amazing, but it's a more gray green, so that's another gamble. Whichever combo I go with, I'm not sure the $20 will see much action as we're not big gamblers. Appreciate the thoughts.
I should clarify, I don't like round inlays on the DSQ for the reason above. Shaped inlays/hotstamps are awesome! It is a nice feeling mold - I like how the texture is a bit smoother than H, but broken in H is still my fav feel.
I was on the same wavelength, I might not have been clear in my response.
It's one of the things I'm wrestling with.
About 15% of my ASM h molds were spinners, but they were made when Jim was transitioning things to Michael and red I believe. My CSQs have about 6%. Your DSQs don't have any spinners??
I need to pull both my HCE and DIASQR sets out and deliberately hunt for spinners. I just don't have the time and have too many other things going on at the moment. No spinners jumped out at me on the DIASQR rack I oiled up. On the HCE, there were a couple really obvious ones where the glue back didn't hold and the inlay bubbled up- you can see the convex shape of the inlay from the side and the stack obviously wobbles.