Do custom set buyers pick "rejects" for sample sets? (1 Viewer)

[Mental Nomad]

If you have paid for a sample set and received damaged chips (especially to the degree of necessitating disposal) , I advise strongly contacting the sender for replacements/compensation. There is an implied contract in place with such matters, and I'd be shocked if it wasn't made right (or as right as possible).

Fair enough, but most sample sales seem to be at cost - if there's no margin in the sample sale, then there's nothing to cover the chipper who had the set made for the "rejects."

What I'm saying is I'd feel like a douche if a chipper paid $1.50 for a chip, and sold it to me for $1.50, and then I made him send me another chip, so that he ends up $1.50 in the hole for making the effort.

 

[Mental Nomad]

General reply to the thread:

I'm not going to name anyone's sets, nor ask for replacements. In all but one case (a bad spot), the chips I've gotten all have one good side. I hadn't considered the fact that so many sample collectors put these in wall mounts, and that many chippers therefore inspect for "one good side" or possibly even choose to send those with "one bad side" when sending samples.

Combining the "one good side" approach with a random variation could well explain my situation. I'm sensitive to it for three reasons, after thinking about it:

1. Several times, I've bought two sets with the intent of using one as a gift for someone who'd appreciate it. That means I picked the best chips and gave them away, sticking myself with the lower-grade chips.
2. I don't wall-mount them. I oil them and have them in racks. When I have guests interested in chips, including during poker games, I break out the samples so people can check them out. So they get handled and seen on all sides.
3. The defect rate I've accumulated would, if it were totally random, totally put me off of CPC's quality. But I've probably had some people sending "one good side" chips, and I've culled off some my best chips to give away... a very small error rate would seem very high in my collection. It's just weird to be apologizing for the quality of the chips I'm handing someone to play with, when I'm trying to tell them these are high-quality hand-made items.

That being said, I've had:
- a well-chipped edge (from well-packaged samples - but not visible from the one good side)
- one really nasty edge smear
- chips with off-color clay on the face on one side
- a chip with nasty scratches on one inlay face
- a chip with a half-embedded inlay (it sticks out, and you can slide a card under the inlay)
- one chip with a wrong-order edge spot error (this is the only one without "one good side" - if it weren't a custom, I'd add it to the "error chips" thread.)

Given that I haven't been collecting sample sets that long, I think I mostly just wanted to be assured that CPC's quality isn't as what my luck seemed to suggest.

 

[12thMan]

I want to say that I responded to this thread because it was something that I have wondered before as well. The OP had a thought in it that went something like "it happens way to often to be random", and that is exactly what I have thought over the last year or so of buying a few sample sets. The flea bite edge chips and scratches on the inlay I have noticed before as well and was what prompted me to think (assume) sample sets commonly get the "less than desirable" chips. I've seen full sets of CPC customs and the quality that CPC puts out seems to be very, very high, I didn't think that it could be complete chance that the chips I got contained "defects" at a higher rate than the full set.

I also feel exactly like Mental Nomad in the way that I don't want to be "that guy" jumping up and down for a "perfect" product when I'm spending just a few dollars and they likely spent thousands. I can't just go to CPC and buy 5 or 6 chips so I don't feel like I should have perfect chips for my small investment. I'm not mad, disappointed, or "expecting" anything when I order sample sets, I'm just happy to have them. Also, I firmly believe that a lot of the defects I see would never be spotted by my average friend who will be looking at these, they just don't look at them as close (lovingly ) as I do.


All that being said, apparently I was wrong in my assumption that it was a common practice to send out the odd balls. Sorry about that, no ill will intended, I was wrong. It's not the first time I've screwed up, it happened once like four years ago as well...