How can I artificially age a Paulson? (1 Viewer)

MD Mike

MD Mike

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please don't murder me for this buuuuut...

I just purchased 200 Paulson hotstamps and will be removing the stamp and then relabeling them as Horseshoe nickels.

Here are the ones (pinky chips): http://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/paulson-solids-vgc-85-a-rack-shipped-to-us.16160/#post-288305

Now, is there a way, hypothetically, to round the edges to be more like a casino used condition instead of the very good condition they are in?

I think it would be weird to have all these nice soft rounded chips and then have sharp flat edged nickels...

Sandpaper maybe? :confused:
 
MD Mike said:
Sandpaper maybe? :confused:
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I've tried it a couple times. You can get ok results with sandpaper, but it's time consuming and you have to be pretty careful to make sure they're symmetrically "worn". I don't really know of a better way to do it, other than to outsource a whole lot of stacks to people to shuffle ;)



edit: For the record, I am not advocating anyway take sandpaper to chips. I literally just tried it with a few chips to see what the results would be like.
 
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bentax1978 said:
I've tried it a couple times. You can get ok results with sandpaper, but it's time consuming and you have to be pretty careful to make sure they're symmetrically "worn". I don't really know of a better way to do it, other than to outsource a whole lot of stacks to people to shuffle ;)
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A shuffle machine yeah.
 
bentax1978 said:
I've tried it a couple times. You can get ok results with sandpaper, but it's time consuming and you have to be pretty careful to make sure they're symmetrically "worn". I don't really know of a better way to do it, other than to outsource a whole lot of stacks to people to shuffle ;)



edit: For the record, I am not advocating anyway take sandpaper to chips. I literally just tried it with a few chips to see what the results would be like.
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Thank you for the edit! Otherwise I would have quoted you as the authority on these matters.
 
You're a sick man, Michael

Side note: I just read your screename as "Muscular Dystrophy Mike", then I thought about my brother with Muscularly Dystrophy. He's an asshole. :p
 
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Test first. Really, run full scale tests on a few chips before ruining the whole lot.

Personally, I would leave them alone. Failing that, I would go looking for other worn chips to relabel. It makes sense that the nickels wouldn't be worn since they likely hadn't been in play for 40 years.
 
Also, make sure to tumble BEFORE hot stamping, obviously...

But the corners should knock off really, really quickly. Definitely test with a few chips to find the right mix to use in the tumbler, and to make sure you're not wrecking the chips, and to make sure they're not going to get absurdly dirty from the tumbler. (Polished rocks wipe right off... but what happens if you rub old rock dust into a compressed clay/polymer chip? Who knows?)

tumbled-obsidian-glass.jpg


But people with tumblers use them for cleaning rust parts, making sea glass, or even cleaning coins:

640_IMG_0868a.JPG


"One bag of aquarium gravel, 2 quarts of pennies, 2 ounces of Palmolive dish soap, enough water to cover. Rotate for two hours and enjoy."
http://mbyers.net/scienceclub/rocktumblerpennies.html
 
Maybe try putting chips in pillow case or something like that and tumble them around each other. Just a theory.
 
Buy the rest of my pink chips at a nice discount and use them for snappers in a bunch of 2.50 -5 limit games get your guys shuffling. Just trying to help lol
 
I am going to check to see if there is a super soft sandpaper first for molding things that are soft and try it very gently .... if that doesn't work I'll go the extra step :)
 
AK Chip said:
Buy the rest of my pink chips at a nice discount and use them for snappers in a bunch of 2.50 -5 limit games get your guys shuffling. Just trying to help lol
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I would love to get all those pink chips but the wife (@Tracy) didn't even realize I bought new chips until just now when I started asking her about how to round edges of chips ... :)

I like to buy and then ask for forgiveness...
 
MD Mike said:
I would love to get all those pink chips but the wife (@Tracy) didn't even realize I bought new chips until just now when I started asking her about how to round edges of chips ... :)

I like to buy and then ask for forgiveness...
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My husband knows I don't care how many chips he buys or how much they cost. (y) :thumbsup:
 
@MD Mike - you and @Kyle should get a room, preferably as far, far away from nice chips as possible. It is evil, unspeakable things you two conspire to do.

First person to ever make my ignore list, and only 'cuz I don't have a banhammer.
 
MD Mike said:
please don't murder me for this buuuuut...

I just purchased 200 Paulson hotstamps and will be removing the stamp and then relabeling them as Horseshoe nickels.

Here are the ones (pinky chips): http://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/paulson-solids-vgc-85-a-rack-shipped-to-us.16160/#post-288305

Now, is there a way, hypothetically, to round the edges to be more like a casino used condition instead of the very good condition they are in?

I think it would be weird to have all these nice soft rounded chips and then have sharp flat edged nickels...

Sandpaper maybe? :confused:
Click to expand...

So, oddly enough, I've actually done the rock tumbler thing with poker chips to do exactly what you want to do. I have a "chuck-a-luck" setup as well as a Faro setup, both are old west gambling games before Craps or Black Jack. I bought a bunch of super diamonds to use for these games, they are like roulette where every person has a different color of chip that may be a different denomination. Since this was an "old West" thing I did not want chips with extremely sharp edges and I wanted some wear. So I got a medium rock tumbler (still have it) and used sand instead of aquarium gravel or real rock polishing grit. The sand is hard enough to do the trick, but still soft enough so that it wears as well during the tumbling and polishes more than it cuts.

My wife thought I was nuts, as did the rock shop that sold me the tumbler. I tried to get him to do it but he wouldn't at all, so I bought a used tumbler that holds about 50 chips at a time. Those super diamonds are plastic, but 50 of them in the barrel with enough sand to cover them and let it run overnight and they were perfect. I just sold all 8000 of those super diamonds on eBay about three weeks ago but here is a picture of the listing and you can see the stacks of red in the foreground are some that had been tumbled. Not the best picture for comparisons, but I took it for a different reason than this.

The greens in the front of the bottom picture have been tumbled as well.

Anyway, hope this helps!

PA221268.JPG


PA221264.JPG
 
BGinGA said:
@MD Mike - you and @Kyle should get a room, preferably as far, far away from nice chips as possible. It is evil, unspeakable things you two conspire to do.

First person to ever make my ignore list, and only 'cuz I don't have a banhammer.
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:eek:

I just wanted them to match my Horseshoe conditions ...

*tears*
 
ekricket said:
So, oddly enough, I've actually done the rock tumbler thing with poker chips to do exactly what you want to do. I have a "chuck-a-luck" setup as well as a Faro setup, both are old west gambling games before Craps or Black Jack. I bought a bunch of super diamonds to use for these games, they are like roulette where every person has a different color of chip that may be a different denomination. Since this was an "old West" thing I did not want chips with extremely sharp edges and I wanted some wear. So I got a medium rock tumbler (still have it) and used sand instead of aquarium gravel or real rock polishing grit. The sand is hard enough to do the trick, but still soft enough so that it wears as well during the tumbling and polishes more than it cuts.

My wife thought I was nuts, as did the rock shop that sold me the tumbler. I tried to get him to do it but he wouldn't at all, so I bought a used tumbler that holds about 50 chips at a time. Those super diamonds are plastic, but 50 of them in the barrel with enough sand to cover them and let it run overnight and they were perfect. I just sold all 8000 of those super diamonds on eBay about three weeks ago but here is a picture of the listing and you can see the stacks of red in the foreground are some that had been tumbled. Not the best picture for comparisons, but I took it for a different reason than this.

The greens in the front of the bottom picture have been tumbled as well.

Anyway, hope this helps!

View attachment 66131

View attachment 66132
Click to expand...
This actually does help. I might try super soft sandpaper first and if that doesn't work, maybe I'll just shuffle them 10 million times :)
 
Just put them in play more and hold a chip shuffling "how-to" presentation with all players! Believe me you will be the only one noticing or caring about the edge difference
 
BGinGA said:
@MD Mike - you and @Kyle should get a room, preferably as far, far away from nice chips as possible. It is evil, unspeakable things you two conspire to do.

First person to ever make my ignore list, and only 'cuz I don't have a banhammer.
Click to expand...
The bitterness continues as your Viagra didn't work and made your face turn blue instead.
 
Kyle said:
The bitterness continues as your Viagra didn't work and made your face turn blue instead.
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Okay, I may have giggled a little at this :)

We can get a room and dissect some Paulsons like a high school biology lab ;)
 
Just the chips you want to age around newer, fresher Paulsons. They'll look the same, but they'll feel older.
 
MD Mike said:
I might try super soft sandpaper first and if that doesn't work, maybe I'll just shuffle them 10 million times
Click to expand...

I fear it's going to be very difficult to get an even wear all the way around one chip without making flat spots, never mind getting all the chips to look similar.
 
Mental Nomad said:
I fear it's going to be very difficult to get an even wear all the way around one chip without making flat spots, never mind getting all the chips to look similar.
Click to expand...
Yeah, you may be right. I might just have to settle for having my Horseshoe nickels look nicer than the rest of my primaries.

I will experiment by shuffling 10 chips over and over repeatedly every day for a month and see what happens :)
 

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