Man oh man do I disagree with the majority of this statement.
1) of real clay chips that we have bought, very very few have been trully flat. I would say 70% of the Paulsons I have touched have had some degree of warpage.
(Best way to test is to take a barrel of chips and sit them on a dense counter like granite, tap the top chip in the edge all the way around, if it moves even ever so slightly... there are warped chips in that barrel) if they wobble at all hold the barrel up to a light or use sun light between your thumb and index finger and look between the chips, any light comight through at all has warped chips in that barrel.
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(Brand new from paulson,see the light between) We recently bought 2 racks of the Brand New From Paulson
RPC chips in 43mm and lots of warped chips straight from the factory. Not terrible, but definitely enough for the trained eye to catch. How about the unsed secondary chips in our recent Indiana Grand sale
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(That's the coveted secondary $1k I am paying $30 a chip for... warped!)
2) I absolutely WISH sellers would be honest about warpage, sadly I would say maybe 10 - 20% max ever mentions it and honestly I think most people don't even know it is a thing so I try to give the Benefit of a doubt on that one. Just recently there have been more threads discussing this issue and finally there are some members who have started to mention "flatness" in their sales ads, but it still has a long ways to go!
(As mentioned above, get as many "from above" pictures as you can! Unfortunately loose racks will also allow space between chips and make it appear as though they are warped, so unfortunately this is not a 100% tell tale sign)
3) using means and methods shown here, absolutely you can fix a slight warpage issue. But there are chips that are beyond repair. Usually the forst or second time through the oven or in a heat blanket you are going to get the majority of what that chip is willing to move and often that is enough especially on softer chips like non leaded paulsons. But on more dense chips like leaded THCs, BCCs and definitely Scrown TRKs... good luck. The denser chips can take more heat for longer periods but you have to be careful when messing around as it doesn't take a ton to "over do it" and absolutely ruin a chip. Sure there are helpful tips here but it is absolutely a learning curve. Members have been having far better success with the heat blanket methods as opposed to conventional ovens (which I still use, but I have flattened thousands of chips and even I still have to be very careful!)
Warped chips absolutely suck! Sure if it's not bad it is barely noticeable and most players will never have a clue. Those chips are probably not worth messing with, but when you get the really bad ones... man you all but want to throw them in the trash rather than spending hours and hours getting them back to resonable.
Now if I am buying $2 - $3 RHCs I don't mind so much and actually have come to expect them to be warped... but when you are spending $40 - $50 a chip on rare stuff it trully boils my blood that people aren't honest on the warpage issues. Some of them are really really bad, if they are leaded... again best of luck with that! It takes a Long long long time to get them back to close, and often if you have to run them more than 4 - 5 times in the oven or heat blanket you can start to push the "mold/hat and canes" back into the clay
Trully flat chips are very difficult to find, what level is acceptable on warpage is up to the owner, this is NOT only true to clay, ceramics have warpage issues as well but not typically as bad as they are much more dense. But I would say they majority of Clay chips have some warpage unless it has been dealt with by a prior owner and even then over time they bounce back... very rarely do they stay flat.
Just another "fun part" of our hobby.
