Psypher1000
Straight Flush
When I first started chipping I really didn't know what I was doing. I didn't understand why sample sets were even for sale ("What am I going to do with just one of each chip? Stupid a la carte pricing..."). I thought spinners were fun ("Hey, look! A top!"). I hadn't yet learned of the distinctive China clay odor ("Huh...pretty sure these are just dyed slices of petrified animal poo log."). I thought about getting a sample set of chips from CPC, but then I saw the cost..nope ("Dude, are they made of golden clay mixed by 70 virgins' hands or something?").
I knew nothing.
Time passed. I learned a little bit as things went on, but generally remained a fool. I bought sets without samples. I purchased chips with $10 denominations. And ultimately, I bought a CPC mold sample set thinking it would help me decide which mold I liked the best.
They arrived. Here's a few of them.
Everything I need to know, right? Done and done. 1000 hourglass mold chips, please!
K, maybe not. The one mold that stuck out to me - in a bad way - was the jockey mold. I honestly couldn't figure out what that was supposed to be. Is that a jockey? A batter in a crouched stance? Smokey takin' a shit (I won't tell nobody else!)? I tossed it aside. Stupid-ass mold.
Even without real context, there were a few things I could learn from these chips.
We'll come back to this in a bit.
More time goes on, and I acquire a couple of hotstamped chips on the scroll mold from some European casinos The first was a simple solid grey 50p chip from England. That's really the one that started my love for the scroll mold. Then I got a few more from Europe with spots and the hook was set. I loved how they looked. I loved how felt. I loved how they slid against each other & how they sounded. (*raises clenched fist & shouts to the sky*) I would absolutely own a set of chips on the scroll mold, and they would be fantastic!
(I paid for my place in J5's queue in February of last year. Paid for the chips in September of last year. Still waiting for the chips. *whistles*)
(I should have them in late March.)
While waiting for my first set of scrolls I started ordering people's sample sets. Everybody was doing it and I wanted to be a cool kid, too, so I started buying them. I didn't get it at first, but then once I began receiving these chips in hand...wow. Then I got it. This was some amazing art! I was hold art in the palm of my hand, and it was awesome!
What I didn't realize, though, is that I was actually holding the real samples. The samples that would help me choose color combinations I might not have otherwise thought of. The samples that would help me realize exactly how light plays differently from one mold to the next. The samples that would bring me understand the jockey mold is one of my best chip friends.
Meanwhile, I began acquiring and cleaning Madame Empress, as well as thousands of THC solids (look for a sale next month!). With a period of about 8-10 months, 5-figures worth of THC chips had gone through my hands, including all manners of color and condition. After you spend that much time with a mold (well, two really...SCV and LCV, but still), you don't realize it, but your brain gets a new wrinkle that stores the information of what the mold looks and feels like. It's just like when you work in a bank or cash cage and handle money all day long...when you hit a counterfeit bill, that wrinkle in your brain triggers because your eyes and hands know that what they just saw and felt isn't quite the same.
Fast forward to about a week ago. I received sample sets of new & old Maggini's chips in the mail. I opened up the old and played with them a bit...huh. Nifty. Those look nice. Then I opened up the new ones. The ones with the shaped inlays & filthy J5 design. The ones with the killer colors. The one...with the jockey mold.
That wrinkle in my brain spoke up.
"This feels familiar. This is the mold you're looking for."
Once again, the hook was set.
Never mind the fact that I'm in love with that inlay design and the 2/5/25 progression of @Dale_Doback 's set. Mother of God...that mold is fan-freakin' tastic! But why? Why did it look and feel so right?
I finally put it all together this past Friday...
Here's a pic minus the flash. The j-mold is barely visible. This is what I mean when I say that it's probably the best for those that jones for the face of a chip far more than the look of them in stacks.
And here's one with flash, directly overhead.
This picture, to me, most clearly illustrates how molds respond differently with light, and how colors can look slightly different on different molds (admittedly, the spot colors can also have something to do with it how the base is perceived as well). The j-mold is a little clearer, but still barely there compared to the scroll or MD-50. What's surprising to me is how reflective that scroll mold is for having such a thin, curved line.
Never mind the fact that it really does have the closest look/feel to the THC molds of any of the CPC offerings.
In short, I love me some jockey mold, and I'll be ordering as much as I can on that mold as soon as I can afford to. But that's not the point. The point is to *get samples*! I don't put this in my signature for no reason at all, but because it's the best advice I can give any newcomer. Buy sample sets from chippers on every mold as they come available, and if you can, buy at least ten chips' worth so you can give them a good shuffle. Buy samples with different spot patterns and inlay shapes and color combinations. Buy all the sample sets you can. Pictures can only do so much. A photo may be able to tell you how light plays off a chip, but it can't tell you how they'll look to your naked eye under your own lighting. A manufacturer's sample chip can tell you how a single chip feels, but it can't tell you how it feels to shuffle them, or how different colors look in stacks. The design tool can give you access to everything, but it will never let you handle anything. And how else will you know whether you agree or disagree with me without samples? It's entirely possible that you get a stack of die-cards and a stack of j-molds and scrolls and a couple others and, after shuffling them and looking at them, you'd come to the conclusion that everything I just typed here is complete rubbish. And if you came to that conclusion, bugger off! Who asked you, anyway? But seriously, if you came to that conclusion, then that means you got samples, and you didn't waste your money taking my word for it. Your eyes, hands, and lighting are different than mine, as are your preferences and experiences.
And never mind all that practical crap - sample sets just look damn good!
In custom chipping, as with most hobbies, you don't know what you don't know until you get into it. Having samples in hand dramatically reduces the learning curve. There's no substitute for sample sets. None. So buy them. Buy them now and start building your samples immediately. A year later you'll be glad you did.
(And also a year older and deeper in debt. But that's another song entirely.)
P.S. - This also applies to ceramics. Think all ceramic colors, blanks, and finishes are the same? Think again. Get samples and learn the differences!
I knew nothing.
Time passed. I learned a little bit as things went on, but generally remained a fool. I bought sets without samples. I purchased chips with $10 denominations. And ultimately, I bought a CPC mold sample set thinking it would help me decide which mold I liked the best.
They arrived. Here's a few of them.
Everything I need to know, right? Done and done. 1000 hourglass mold chips, please!
K, maybe not. The one mold that stuck out to me - in a bad way - was the jockey mold. I honestly couldn't figure out what that was supposed to be. Is that a jockey? A batter in a crouched stance? Smokey takin' a shit (I won't tell nobody else!)? I tossed it aside. Stupid-ass mold.
Even without real context, there were a few things I could learn from these chips.
- Their relative sizes. The MD-50 mold is 39mm. The others...not so much. This was my first realization that not all chips are 39mm (I hadn't yet handled any BG ceramics or TRK's).
- Some inlays are smooth and some are textured. FDL mold, anyone? Just look at that surface!
- The light reflects off the surface of the chips differently.
We'll come back to this in a bit.
More time goes on, and I acquire a couple of hotstamped chips on the scroll mold from some European casinos The first was a simple solid grey 50p chip from England. That's really the one that started my love for the scroll mold. Then I got a few more from Europe with spots and the hook was set. I loved how they looked. I loved how felt. I loved how they slid against each other & how they sounded. (*raises clenched fist & shouts to the sky*) I would absolutely own a set of chips on the scroll mold, and they would be fantastic!
(I paid for my place in J5's queue in February of last year. Paid for the chips in September of last year. Still waiting for the chips. *whistles*)
(I should have them in late March.)
While waiting for my first set of scrolls I started ordering people's sample sets. Everybody was doing it and I wanted to be a cool kid, too, so I started buying them. I didn't get it at first, but then once I began receiving these chips in hand...wow. Then I got it. This was some amazing art! I was hold art in the palm of my hand, and it was awesome!
What I didn't realize, though, is that I was actually holding the real samples. The samples that would help me choose color combinations I might not have otherwise thought of. The samples that would help me realize exactly how light plays differently from one mold to the next. The samples that would bring me understand the jockey mold is one of my best chip friends.
Meanwhile, I began acquiring and cleaning Madame Empress, as well as thousands of THC solids (look for a sale next month!). With a period of about 8-10 months, 5-figures worth of THC chips had gone through my hands, including all manners of color and condition. After you spend that much time with a mold (well, two really...SCV and LCV, but still), you don't realize it, but your brain gets a new wrinkle that stores the information of what the mold looks and feels like. It's just like when you work in a bank or cash cage and handle money all day long...when you hit a counterfeit bill, that wrinkle in your brain triggers because your eyes and hands know that what they just saw and felt isn't quite the same.
Fast forward to about a week ago. I received sample sets of new & old Maggini's chips in the mail. I opened up the old and played with them a bit...huh. Nifty. Those look nice. Then I opened up the new ones. The ones with the shaped inlays & filthy J5 design. The ones with the killer colors. The one...with the jockey mold.
That wrinkle in my brain spoke up.
"This feels familiar. This is the mold you're looking for."
Once again, the hook was set.
Never mind the fact that I'm in love with that inlay design and the 2/5/25 progression of @Dale_Doback 's set. Mother of God...that mold is fan-freakin' tastic! But why? Why did it look and feel so right?
I finally put it all together this past Friday...
- It feels the most familiar to your/my fingers. I've held more THC chips than I can count. This is the closest thing in CPC's lineup to that mold.
- The cross-hatching on the mold feel slightly different from the rest and provides just the right amount of friction. Not so much that the chips can't move, but plenty enough to keep stacks stable. Weird as it sounds, I'd describe it as "velvety". I had obviously handled the jockey mold sample from the manufacturer, but it wasn't until I got multiples of them that I could fully appreciate the feel of it.
- For people that really love the face aspect of chips, there may not be a better mold. Since the jockeys are small there's very few indentations or lines that break up the look of the chip, and what mold depressions do exist are very un-intrusive. When viewing the chips from an angle the only parts of the mold you can really see easily are the inner and outer rings. This is opposed to the scroll, CSQ, and the biggest offender - MD50 - where the mold is impossible to visually escape due to both the multiple indentations and reflective surfaces. That's not meant to be a knock on those molds - I love them all! Rather, it illustrates that light dramatically reflects differently off the jockey mold than many of the others and ultimately leaves you with a cleaner look. With the MD-50, the personality of the mold *must* be integrated into the chip. It's part of the chip. With the j-mold, the spots and inlay stand out on their own.
- The colors look slightly different on different molds. I suspect this is likely due to the variations in cross-hatching and lines in the mold itself. Regardless, I like the way the colors come off the mold.
Here's a pic minus the flash. The j-mold is barely visible. This is what I mean when I say that it's probably the best for those that jones for the face of a chip far more than the look of them in stacks.
And here's one with flash, directly overhead.
This picture, to me, most clearly illustrates how molds respond differently with light, and how colors can look slightly different on different molds (admittedly, the spot colors can also have something to do with it how the base is perceived as well). The j-mold is a little clearer, but still barely there compared to the scroll or MD-50. What's surprising to me is how reflective that scroll mold is for having such a thin, curved line.
Never mind the fact that it really does have the closest look/feel to the THC molds of any of the CPC offerings.
In short, I love me some jockey mold, and I'll be ordering as much as I can on that mold as soon as I can afford to. But that's not the point. The point is to *get samples*! I don't put this in my signature for no reason at all, but because it's the best advice I can give any newcomer. Buy sample sets from chippers on every mold as they come available, and if you can, buy at least ten chips' worth so you can give them a good shuffle. Buy samples with different spot patterns and inlay shapes and color combinations. Buy all the sample sets you can. Pictures can only do so much. A photo may be able to tell you how light plays off a chip, but it can't tell you how they'll look to your naked eye under your own lighting. A manufacturer's sample chip can tell you how a single chip feels, but it can't tell you how it feels to shuffle them, or how different colors look in stacks. The design tool can give you access to everything, but it will never let you handle anything. And how else will you know whether you agree or disagree with me without samples? It's entirely possible that you get a stack of die-cards and a stack of j-molds and scrolls and a couple others and, after shuffling them and looking at them, you'd come to the conclusion that everything I just typed here is complete rubbish. And if you came to that conclusion, bugger off! Who asked you, anyway? But seriously, if you came to that conclusion, then that means you got samples, and you didn't waste your money taking my word for it. Your eyes, hands, and lighting are different than mine, as are your preferences and experiences.
And never mind all that practical crap - sample sets just look damn good!
In custom chipping, as with most hobbies, you don't know what you don't know until you get into it. Having samples in hand dramatically reduces the learning curve. There's no substitute for sample sets. None. So buy them. Buy them now and start building your samples immediately. A year later you'll be glad you did.
(And also a year older and deeper in debt. But that's another song entirely.)
P.S. - This also applies to ceramics. Think all ceramic colors, blanks, and finishes are the same? Think again. Get samples and learn the differences!
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