Hello Everyone at PCF!
My name is Wilson and I'm very new to this forum. I only recently discovered this site and have spent the last several days reading every thread that interested me, cover to cover (sorry work/wife). I am wanting to build a custom set of chips to go at our ranch and I'm looking for some recommendations from everyone here that's forgotten more about chips than I'll ever know.
While we will certainly use the chips to play poker, "friendly" blackjack games are far more common with my friends. I have spent quite a bit of time at different casinos handling their chips, but I've never had a set of my own any nicer than a cheap, plastic, off-the-shelf kit. I'm not sure if I personally have enough experience to tell the difference between clay vs ceramic vs cheaper china clays, but while I'm not looking to bankrupt myself here, I want to get this as right as possible and buy once, cry once. I want a good set that will last out there and look professional to all audiences. I'm thinking a 500 chip set should cover my needs with 5 different chip colors/denominations ($1, $5, $25, $100, $500). I was originally thinking that a custom inlay was what I was looking for, until I fell in love with an old hot press set I found listed online for sale. If I'm doing this right, hopefully a picture of the "El Rancho Vegas" chips show up below.
There's something about the simplicity, beauty and old school nature of these chips that really speak to me. For mine, I would plan to have the ranch's brand in place of the windmill and the ranch's name in place of "El Rancho Vegas" on the other side. While I started out building different chip/spot color combinations on CPC's website, that was really fun, but I don't know that I really need super fancy/high end spotting and if I might be just as pleased with keeping it simple - just as the El Rancho chips are. In recreating the above chips with their font's I also believe that I will need 6 dies (1 front and 5 backs due to the different denominations - please correct me if this is not how this works). Purchasing everything directly through CPC would involve (per their website) $600+ in die costs ($100-$150/each).
Now that you know a little about me and my project, here's where the questions start. What's the most economic way to build these chips? The things that I "want" unless you tell me that I don't need them are 1) good clay chips and 2) hot stamp's as described above. The things I'm less concerned with are 1) spot pattern 2) buying chips new/getting to totally customize colors / color schemes. What would you recommend here? Buying everything directly through CPC? With $600+ in dies, I estimate the 500 chip set would run me roughly $1,500 with relatively simple spot patterns/molds. Collect/purchase good blank chips new/used/second hand on here/eBay/other places and then get a vendor to do the hot stamping on those? I'm not sure this exists, but maybe there is another option that I'm unaware of that has limited stock clay chip options that offers hot stamping without the exorbitant die costs. I guess another question that I had - will CPC use other people's brass dies (I've seen Owosso mentioned here or a similar company)? It would certainly cut down on costs if I would have someone else make the dies and CPC just use them. I have actually asked them this question but have yet to get a response. I thought someone on here might already have experience with this.
Anyways, thank you all in advance for reading and any suggestions/help here! Please let me know if I need to clarify any of the above and I apologize to the extent that any of this has been covered in previous posts. I look forward to being a part of this community and I'm excited to build my first set!
Wilson
My name is Wilson and I'm very new to this forum. I only recently discovered this site and have spent the last several days reading every thread that interested me, cover to cover (sorry work/wife). I am wanting to build a custom set of chips to go at our ranch and I'm looking for some recommendations from everyone here that's forgotten more about chips than I'll ever know.
While we will certainly use the chips to play poker, "friendly" blackjack games are far more common with my friends. I have spent quite a bit of time at different casinos handling their chips, but I've never had a set of my own any nicer than a cheap, plastic, off-the-shelf kit. I'm not sure if I personally have enough experience to tell the difference between clay vs ceramic vs cheaper china clays, but while I'm not looking to bankrupt myself here, I want to get this as right as possible and buy once, cry once. I want a good set that will last out there and look professional to all audiences. I'm thinking a 500 chip set should cover my needs with 5 different chip colors/denominations ($1, $5, $25, $100, $500). I was originally thinking that a custom inlay was what I was looking for, until I fell in love with an old hot press set I found listed online for sale. If I'm doing this right, hopefully a picture of the "El Rancho Vegas" chips show up below.
There's something about the simplicity, beauty and old school nature of these chips that really speak to me. For mine, I would plan to have the ranch's brand in place of the windmill and the ranch's name in place of "El Rancho Vegas" on the other side. While I started out building different chip/spot color combinations on CPC's website, that was really fun, but I don't know that I really need super fancy/high end spotting and if I might be just as pleased with keeping it simple - just as the El Rancho chips are. In recreating the above chips with their font's I also believe that I will need 6 dies (1 front and 5 backs due to the different denominations - please correct me if this is not how this works). Purchasing everything directly through CPC would involve (per their website) $600+ in die costs ($100-$150/each).
Now that you know a little about me and my project, here's where the questions start. What's the most economic way to build these chips? The things that I "want" unless you tell me that I don't need them are 1) good clay chips and 2) hot stamp's as described above. The things I'm less concerned with are 1) spot pattern 2) buying chips new/getting to totally customize colors / color schemes. What would you recommend here? Buying everything directly through CPC? With $600+ in dies, I estimate the 500 chip set would run me roughly $1,500 with relatively simple spot patterns/molds. Collect/purchase good blank chips new/used/second hand on here/eBay/other places and then get a vendor to do the hot stamping on those? I'm not sure this exists, but maybe there is another option that I'm unaware of that has limited stock clay chip options that offers hot stamping without the exorbitant die costs. I guess another question that I had - will CPC use other people's brass dies (I've seen Owosso mentioned here or a similar company)? It would certainly cut down on costs if I would have someone else make the dies and CPC just use them. I have actually asked them this question but have yet to get a response. I thought someone on here might already have experience with this.
Anyways, thank you all in advance for reading and any suggestions/help here! Please let me know if I need to clarify any of the above and I apologize to the extent that any of this has been covered in previous posts. I look forward to being a part of this community and I'm excited to build my first set!
Wilson