First year of PCF. Racks: full. Wallet: empty. Time for some PrOn! (1 Viewer)

JJsizlr74

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Well, my one year PCF anniversary is this week, and I am overdue for posting some PrOn, so here goes...
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My chipping adventure began about 2 years ago with this set of Milanos. This was my combined cash and tourney set before this past year, and is now my multi-table tourney set and travel set. I didn’t buy any fracs, we used the $25s for quarters and initially we were only playing cash games anyway. This pic is not the full set as I added on about 300 more chips for around 1,400 chips total, all pre-PCF.

8C42E11C-F4D3-4D0A-924D-FFB1982B6EFC.jpeg


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About a year ago, I went to a friends house and got first hand exposure to Paulsons. I was pretty excited to handle the Paulson chips, as at that point I had seen pics online but they were kind of high-hanging fruit for me, something I wanted but couldn’t justify...until I saw someone else I knew was also willing to drop that much coin on something that was maybe, do I dare say... overindulgent? Before that point, I was already fairly obsessed anyway after searching online for Paulson chips, mainly on The Apache site where I loved the WTHCs and the Classics. Handling them for first time, I couldn’t get over the dye colors and how they felt. The door to the rabbit hole had opened...

I had been perusing PCF for about a year at that point, but somehow had never gone into the classifieds, and, unfortunately for my wallet, it was around that time I discovered that particular sub-forum. I began putting together a set of Pauslon Classics after seeing some individual racks and barrels at what seemed like reasonable prices. I know the Fantasy chips aren’t the favorites of the chip connoisseurs out there (esp the molds), but I was kind of enamored with those at the time and ended up putting a small tourney set together (this corresponded to the time when we decided to organize a monthly league consisting of a NLHE tourney followed by cash ring games). I still really dig the colors, esp the $1,000 denom, and they are all NM/mint. Here is the set I put together...this is my single-table tourney set..

6BF789BC-193F-471A-89F7-29B9725CE4E8.jpeg


———————————————————-

The more time I spent on this site, the more I wanted to put together a mixed casino cash set. To me, these sets offer a great chance to mix and match some beautiful chips, and I loved some of the examples I saw on this site. Over the course of this year, I have been working on two mixed-casino cash sets which I just recently “finished” at about the same time. Each of these has a different feel and a different purpose, and I am ecstatic at how they both are turning out...

This is my Mixed-casino, “Tribute to Old-School Reno” TRK cash set:
EB4DCA69-296B-416D-8815-12A0772FF574.jpeg


B1B57710-B048-4409-B4D6-51C69C4CB44D.jpeg

5B35B7C0-4FB4-458B-AC65-202166FF07C1.jpeg

4BA8B10E-FDE3-4A6C-BD8E-1C1342FF321B.jpeg


The TRK set is going to serve as my post-tourney cash set...and probably blackjack games with my extended family. Buy-ins are usually $20 for our post-tourney poker games, and probably about 5-8 players on average. One rack of $5s chips should be sufficient, and it’s not like I have a choice given the limited availability. With the barrel of $25s, total bank on this set is $1,325, which would actually cover any of the dedicated cash home games I have hosted thus far. This will get more use than my other cash set, which works out great as most of this set is casino-used. All the cool aspects of TRKs have been reviewed ad naseum by others, including great colors, “buttery” feel, etc...and they are all true. I also love the vintage quality with this set...it’s fun to play with chips that were used in a casino 50 years ago.

04530F3D-8571-49D7-8B00-237B171CE1C7.jpeg

The fracs were milled and labeled by @Gear. Of course, the fracs for this set were the most difficult component. I originally picked up the monogrammed whites on eBay and thought about using a those, with a different label as the Mapes label wouldn’t work for multiple reasons. Then the red monogrammed chips showed up on the classifieds courtesy of @Seeking Alpha Social Club and I grabbed those. They bring balance to the color palette for the set as a whole, and the red works great for a Mapes frac.
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This is my mixed-casino THC primary cash set....

AB35DF24-32A0-4241-9198-2030C7797930.jpeg

3DAB2499-593F-4F90-9181-8AD1B528E17F.jpeg

The main “rule” I had for this was keeping the mold the same, all THC SCV/LCV. I absolutely love this set. I especially love the yellow-blue-red combo of the lower denoms (heavily inspired by @David O’s set). This is the one I would like to continue to build on, although I am not trying to build limit set or anything crazy, but I at least get to a full rack of spotted Flamingo $1s (pics misleading... I am only sitting on about 55 spotted $1s right now). Most of what I have are nonspotted birds, which I actually still like a lot even without the spots. Most of my Flamingos came after harvesting on a trip to Vegas this past spring. I got pretty excited on day #1 when I went up to birdcage and the nice lady there was asking all her fellow cashiers to check through there drawers to drum up some spotted chips for me....walked away with about 10 spotted $1s on first try just walking in off the strip. Day #2 was more bleak...played some 1/2 NLHE in poker room, walked out with some chips but ratios of spotted to nonspotted came up something like this...
D8F8F6D4-8FA2-4E39-BAD1-B74A3A381C1F.jpeg

This THC set is also a truly mixed set, as about 1/3 of my fracs are El Cortez, with most of the fracs Sams Town. Still short 10 chips for a full 200 for the fracs and have at least 10 in that mix poor enough condition that they need to be replaced. I appreciate that 200 fracs are overkill for many, but I wanted ability to have full barrel for 10 person table. Condition of the chips in this set varies. The 1$s are obviously casino used. $5s, $25s and $100s all mint. I love that the $100s incorporate the canary yellow from the fracs and the spots on the Flamingos and the blue of the Flamingos. PCA $25s are kind of outlier, I just love that chip. Colors from pics don’t do this set justice in how much the $5s and $25s glow.

46B40F8F-E4D9-44AA-BFFE-7421A37538EB.jpeg

With a bank of $4,808 at present, this set easily covers even the higher end of the dedicated cash games I would host, which are usually $0.25/$0.50 mixed games. It allows for wider range and growth into higher stakes in the future. I am going to reserve this set for dedicated cash games, hopefully will see some action few times a year but given lots of mint-condition chips, I am ok with using these for more infrequent “special” events...although I would have no problem putting the mint chips into play, I love the idea of having two mixed sets for cash games...no one set will not get overly abused, and I think it is fun to mix it up alternating sets.
———————————————————.

Thanks to all the PCF members that have inspired my collection and sold me chips, dealer buttons, the Warneke boxes, cards, etc. this past year, as well as all the contributions for strategy posts, chip cleaning tips (this year also included buying an ultrasonic for all those Flamingos and Nevada Lodge chips), table ideas, and so many other aspects for improving the quality of my home game, and my poker game in general.

Jason
 
Well, my one year PCF anniversary is this week, and I am overdue for posting some PrOn, so here goes...
———————————————————-
My chipping adventure began about 2 years ago with this set of Milanos. This was my combined cash and tourney set before this past year, and is now my multi-table tourney set and travel set. I didn’t buy any fracs, we used the $25s for quarters and initially we were only playing cash games anyway. This pic is not the full set as I added on about 300 more chips for around 1,400 chips total, all pre-PCF.

View attachment 142264

———————————————————-
About a year ago, I went to a friends house and got first hand exposure to Paulsons. I was pretty excited to handle the Paulson chips, as at that point I had seen pics online but they were kind of high-hanging fruit for me, something I wanted but couldn’t justify...until I saw someone else I knew was also willing to drop that much coin on something that was maybe, do I dare say... overindulgent? Before that point, I was already fairly obsessed anyway after searching online for Paulson chips, mainly on The Apache site where I loved the WTHCs and the Classics. Handling them for first time, I couldn’t get over the dye colors and how they felt. The door to the rabbit hole had opened...

I had been perusing PCF for about a year at that point, but somehow had never gone into the classifieds, and, unfortunately for my wallet, it was around that time I discovered that particular sub-forum. I began putting together a set of Pauslon Classics after seeing some individual racks and barrels at what seemed like reasonable prices. I know the Fantasy chips aren’t the favorites of the chip connoisseurs out there (esp the molds), but I was kind of enamored with those at the time and ended up putting a small tourney set together (this corresponded to the time when we decided to organize a monthly league consisting of a NLHE tourney followed by cash ring games). I still really dig the colors, esp the $1,000 denom, and they are all NM/mint. Here is the set I put together...this is my single-table tourney set..

View attachment 142270

———————————————————-

The more time I spent on this site, the more I wanted to put together a mixed casino cash set. To me, these sets offer a great chance to mix and match some beautiful chips, and I loved some of the examples I saw on this site. Over the course of this year, I have been working on two mixed-casino cash sets which I just recently “finished” at about the same time. Each of these has a different feel and a different purpose, and I am ecstatic at how they both are turning out...

This is my Mixed-casino, “Tribute to Old-School Reno” TRK cash set:
View attachment 142268

View attachment 142269
View attachment 142266
View attachment 142265

The TRK set is going to serve as my post-tourney cash set...and probably blackjack games with my extended family. Buy-ins are usually $20 for our post-tourney poker games, and probably about 5-8 players on average. One rack of $5s chips should be sufficient, and it’s not like I have a choice given the limited availability. With the barrel of $25s, total bank on this set is $1,325, which would actually cover any of the dedicated cash home games I have hosted thus far. This will get more use than my other cash set, which works out great as most of this set is casino-used. All the cool aspects of TRKs have been reviewed ad naseum by others, including great colors, “buttery” feel, etc...and they are all true. I also love the vintage quality with this set...it’s fun to play with chips that were used in a casino 50 years ago.

View attachment 142267
The fracs were milled and labeled by @Gear. Of course, the fracs for this set were the most difficult component. I originally picked up the monogrammed whites on eBay and thought about using a those, with a different label as the Mapes label wouldn’t work for multiple reasons. Then the red monogrammed chips showed up on the classifieds courtesy of @Seeking Alpha Social Club and I grabbed those. They bring balance to the color palette for the set as a whole, and the red works great for a Mapes frac.
———————————————————-
This is my mixed-casino THC primary cash set....

View attachment 142261
View attachment 142260
The main “rule” I had for this was keeping the mold the same, all THC SCV/LCV. I absolutely love this set. I especially love the yellow-blue-red combo of the lower denoms (heavily inspired by @David O’s set). This is the one I would like to continue to build on, although I am not trying to build limit set or anything crazy, but I at least get to a full rack of spotted Flamingo $1s (pics misleading... I am only sitting on about 55 spotted $1s right now). Most of what I have are nonspotted birds, which I actually still like a lot even without the spots. Most of my Flamingos came after harvesting on a trip to Vegas this past spring. I got pretty excited on day #1 when I went up to birdcage and the nice lady there was asking all her fellow cashiers to check through there drawers to drum up some spotted chips for me....walked away with about 10 spotted $1s on first try just walking in off the strip. Day #2 was more bleak...played some 1/2 NLHE in poker room, walked out with some chips but ratios of spotted to nonspotted came up something like this...
View attachment 142263
This THC set is also a truly mixed set, as about 1/3 of my fracs are El Cortez, with most of the fracs Sams Town. Still short 10 chips for a full 200 for the fracs and have at least 10 in that mix poor enough condition that they need to be replaced. I appreciate that 200 fracs are overkill for many, but I wanted ability to have full barrel for 10 person table. Condition of the chips in this set varies. The 1$s are obviously casino used. $5s, $25s and $100s all mint. I love that the $100s incorporate the canary yellow from the fracs and the spots on the Flamingos and the blue of the Flamingos. PCA $25s are kind of outlier, I just love that chip. Colors from pics don’t do this set justice in how much the $5s and $25s glow.

View attachment 142262
With a bank of $4,808 at present, this set easily covers even the higher end of the dedicated cash games I would host, which are usually $0.25/$0.50 mixed games. It allows for wider range and growth into higher stakes in the future. I am going to reserve this set for dedicated cash games, hopefully will see some action few times a year but given lots of mint-condition chips, I am ok with using these for more infrequent “special” events...although I would have no problem putting the mint chips into play, I love the idea of having two mixed sets for cash games...no one set will not get overly abused, and I think it is fun to mix it up alternating sets.
———————————————————.

Thanks to all the PCF members that have inspired my collection and sold me chips, dealer buttons, the Warneke boxes, cards, etc. this past year, as well as all the contributions for strategy posts, chip cleaning tips (this year also included buying an ultrasonic for all those Flamingos and Nevada Lodge chips), table ideas, and so many other aspects for improving the quality of my home game, and my poker game in general.

Jason
VERY NICE!!! I'm really glad the red fracs worked for you; I use some for fracs as well. They look great!!

Congrats on a successful first year!!(y) :thumbsup:
 
I have been waiting for these pictures and came across this post this evening!

Wow, Nice Job Jason! I love the transition form Milanos and then to Paulson Classics and then BAMMM!!! straight to the TR Kings! Then on top of that you put together a great mixed set. Love to see the El Cortez and Flamingos getting some love in your mixed set.
 

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