If you ever wondered which Paulson chips still had lead in them after '98... (2 Viewers)

lherron

lherron

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So I'm a little anal about lead just because the wife is expecting. Lead is serious shit in extremely small quantities, but if you're not licking the chips, giving them to kids, or pregnant, it really doesn't seem like a big deal. If Doyle and Slim don't have any ill effects of lead... I think we're all safe. I'm more curious than actually worried. But still, given the choice when buying new chips, obviously I'd prefer to have zero lead in products that I enjoy idly handling pretty much constantly :D

Anyway, I think most of us know the lead situation with Paulsons. From their official statement back in '07:

- pre '98 most colors were 47% lead (lol...)
- '98-'06 most colors were >1% lead.. except for 7 colors which were still the old 47%
- post '06 basically zero lead

So I did a little googling and found a doc that I've never seen posted here or on CT. Pretty interesting.

http://yosemite.epa.gov/oppts/epats...63B006FB6EE/$FILE/88080000127.pdf?OpenElement

Officially, the colors that still had 47% lead between '98-'05 were:

Blurple, Day green, Fuschia, Indian Blue, Metallic Gold, Metallic Silver


(Apologies if this has actually been posted before.)


B4D7Lf1.png
 
Lead (at least the lead in poker chips) isn't absorbed through the skin. You only have to worry about inhaling or ingesting it (e.g. if you are milling old Paulsons you may want to take precautionary measures).
 
great info! thanks for posting it. i've bought several lead test kits to test my chips in the past, but this report is better.

-gc :)
 
carlin said:
great info! thanks for posting it. i've bought several lead test kits to test my chips in the past, but this report is better.

-gc :)
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Np! Just trying to give back to the community. It's the least I can do for a forum where you get free shit in the mail for doing nothing :D
 
Mental Nomad said:
I suspect that would be the percentage of lead in the coloring agents, not in the chip material as a whole. Otherwise, I think each chip would be much heavier.
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Psypher1000 said:
This. On the flipside, can you imagine the "official casino weight" of chips if they were slugged w/40% lead?
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I know right? You'd think that'd be the case. But it is actually 47% total weight of the chip. Check out page 3 of the pdf. 4.5 grams of lead per chip as reported by Paulson themselves.
 
Mental Nomad said:
I suspect that would be the percentage of lead in the coloring agents, not in the chip material as a whole. Otherwise, I think each chip would be much heavier.
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A chip that was 47% lead (by volume) would weight between 40 and 50 grams.

By weight, it could have been 47% lead.
 
Mental Nomad said:
I suspect that would be the percentage of lead in the coloring agents, not in the chip material as a whole. Otherwise, I think each chip would be much heavier.
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Nope. It's the actual lead content of the entire chip, e.g. a 9.5g chip has about 4 g of lead in it.
 
bentax1978 said:
It might have been 47% lead by weight, that's possible.
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Right, paulson reported the % by weight. I was dumb in my post above and not putting together the fact you guys were talking about volume... time for bed!
 
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Leaded Paulsons are very good things. I have a set and plan to wire them together as a radiation shield if the sh&t ever hits the fan (and play with their leaded hefty goodness every so often!!!
 
Interesting doc. I’ve heard that the original lead scare initiated from Chipco to promote their own ceramic chips. After that study came out, Paulson quickly found a different formula for those 6 “leaded” chips. They made 6 special chips to replace the “leaded” chips in their 78-chip color sample set (complete set at the time), distinguished by a different mold (RHC), shown here. All the other colors in the sample set are on the SCV mold.

I only have one set of these. Very rare. Not many sets were made.

full
 
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So I would presume that most of my chips are of no concern. I won't use my Dunes as serving spoons.
 
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So of my Aztar IN, Grand Victoria IN and Par-A-Dice chips, the Aztars and GV are 47% lead by weight, and only the P-A-D are lead free (ish)?
 
lherron said:
I know right? You'd think that'd be the case. But it is actually 47% total weight of the chip. Check out page 3 of the pdf. 4.5 grams of lead per chip as reported by Paulson themselves.
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OK, then, that's a lot of lead. Feel free to use Paulsons as grapeshot in your cannon.
 
This is one reason that my first set of Paulson chips is from the Horseshoe in Cleveland and Cincinnati. They opened their doors in 2012. These chips were definitely made after lead was abolished. With my two year old son kicking around, I don't want to take a chance.

Excellent find on the report!
 
reckon you have more chance of being mugged and murdered by Porky Pig and Foghorn Leghorn than getting a dose of lead poisoning from old Paulson chips :cool:



 
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With my metallic gold Fitz quarters, and Blurple roulettes (as dimes), I'm well on my way to an all-47% lead mixed cash set. ;) Any suggestions for the $1s?
 
I milled down some Lucky Derby 50c which look Day Green. Think they or any other popular chips would be affected? Not like it would change the fact that I milled them, but may be precautionary for others.
 
superchromix said:
With my metallic gold Fitz quarters, and Blurple roulettes (as dimes), I'm well on my way to an all-47% lead mixed cash set. ;) Any suggestions for the $1s?
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I have some leaded "$1s" that are super heavy at 11.4g. I was planning on selling them as part of a solid 600 chip cash set in the not to distant future. Though they're probably not good candidates to be milled if that's what you had in mind ;)

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