Let's Talk Casablanca . (1 Viewer)

Goldfish

Goldfish

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I am interested in the Casablanca chips. I am not sure how I feel about the oversized inlays though. What is the deal with that anyway? Why would they do that?

Do the below highlighted chips exist in quantity and in excellent condition? This could be a new chipping adventure….
IMG_1869.jpeg
 
Goldfish said:
I am interested in the Casablanca chips. I am not sure how I feel about the oversized inlays though. What is the deal with that anyway? Why would they do that?

Do the below highlighted chips exist in quantity and in excellent condition? This could be a new chipping adventure….
View attachment 1294859
Click to expand...
I know the gray exist in some quantity and EX condition. My rack has been sold so this is just for pr0n purposes. Those green 25s, or maybe the ones next to it I've seen, but they were more used. Those 5s I've never seen but rumour has it they are out there.
PXL_20230705_191432766.jpg
 
I had a set of Casablancas that I got sometime in the mid/late 2000s (I think from Nevada Jacks or maybe Hold 'Em Poker, can't recall for sure). While I loved the chips, the Brick $100 being one of my favorite chips ever, I found it too frustrating to get quantity of the what I needed to make my preferred tournament set (25-5K). I had a somewhat workable 5-500 set (2K or 5K kind of thing) but I just didn't care for that format as much. There were very few $1Ks (that over sized Orange) and they were always very expensive. There are no $5Ks that I'm aware of.

The $5 you have highlighted I don't know that I've ever seen quantity on. The specific $25 and $100 I have seen but it seems people hold on to them pretty tightly. Therein was part of my frustration, folks that have them seemed to hold on to them. I just didn't have the patience to wait for years to gather all the parts for a workable set. I still check eBay, PCF Classifieds, FB markeplace, etc. and they just don't show up very often which makes me more comfortable with having let them go, not being willing to go the murder route.

I don't know how many of the total count of any of these are out there but I'd guess even for the most common (Hot Pink $5 and the two 314 Green $25) I'd guess several racks at best. I think I've seen about/less than 1000 of each of those. Even though I think Casablancas are somewhat rare and I believe many are leaded, I found them hard to sell! They languished in Classifieds here but sold quickly on eBay (sold for higher price but had to suck up fees).

Are those inlays oversized? They seemed pretty normal to me. They don't encroach on the edge spots.

CasablancaSet.jpeg
 
The radiant spotted $5s are SUPER scarce, I only know of maybe 4-5 racks total, and they're all more worn from what l've seen. (Steam's set pictured)
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I got super luck to find a sharp rack of $25s, I didn't even know if there were any in exc+ condition, and maybe half of the small inlay 818 $100s l've seen are sharp, the rest are more used.
IMG_6212.jpg
 
Difficult thread to read, since our ship will be in Casablanca in about 36 hours. Wish I could just hop over to the casino and pick up a few racks!

Sadly, it's enough of a challenge to get a decent meal there during Ramadan. Timing is everything... :(

Screenshot (49).png
 
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pltrgyst said:
Difficult thread to read, since our ship will be in Casablanca in about 36 hours. Wish I could just hop over to the casino and pick up a few racks!

Sadly, it's enough of a challenge to get a decent meal there during Ramadan. Timing is everything... :(

View attachment 1295010
Click to expand...
Just like a she-goat rubbing herself around the shepherds's stick.
Americans' rejection of historical knowledge and cultural allergy towards it, can generate both funny and plain tragic incidents.
 
Coyote said:
Just like a she-goat rubbing herself around the shepherds's stick.
Americans' rejection of historical knowledge and cultural allergy towards it, can generate both funny and plain tragic incidents.
Click to expand...

There's no rejection of anything there. It's a simple fact that the vast majority of Casablanca restaurants (the exceptions being a few large hotels) do not serve meals during daylight hours in Ramadan, and most cruise ships are only in port during those daylight hours. Given that, most western passengers greatly reduce their time ashore, and cruise lines cancel or modify/reduce the scope of the excursions they offer during Ramadan. Princess canceled our $300+ per person six-hour-long market/food prep/lunch excursion, not us.
 
pltrgyst said:
There's no rejection of anything there. It's a simple fact that the vast majority of Casablanca restaurants (the exceptions being a few large hotels) do not serve meals during daylight hours in Ramadan, and most cruise ships are only in port during those daylight hours. Given that, most western passengers greatly reduce their time ashore, and cruise lines cancel or modify/reduce the scope of the excursions they offer during Ramadan. Princess canceled our $300+ per person six-hour-long market/food prep/lunch excursion, not us.
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We don't disagree at all. Different words to describe reality.
 
I believe the large inlays are a later run and are not leaded, another very interesting point is that some of the demons have aligned labels with the spots, and I can’t think of another casino that did this.
 
pltrgyst said:
Difficult thread to read, since our ship will be in Casablanca in about 36 hours. Wish I could just hop over to the casino and pick up a few racks!

Sadly, it's enough of a challenge to get a decent meal there during Ramadan. Timing is everything... :(

View attachment 1295010
Click to expand...
Not sure if you are joking or not. The Casablanca casino was actually in Aruba. I think they’ve been shut for a decade. IIRC there was another casino in its place but I think that might be shut too.
 
Goldfish said:
Do the below highlighted chips exist in quantity and in excellent condition?
Click to expand...
Not that I've seen, and I'm a long-time Casablanca owner/collector. Based on all the past sales I can remember on ChipTalk and PCF, I think there may be more of the Gray 818 chips that exist than the $5 and $25 variants you circled below combined.
1710801929389.png


Casablancas are one of the first Paulson chips I ever bought when I got into this hobby, back in the days before PCF. I don't own all the racks in this old pic anymore, but I still have around 800 $5s, around 160 $25s, and 160 $100s, and 80 of the light orange/tan $500s. Most of my chips are mostly in good/very good condition, just a notch down from excellent.

IMG_4328

IMG_4328


IMG_4336

IMG_4336


IMG_4339

IMG_4339

 
The Casa chips were initially picked up and sold by @TheChipVault (and later by @The Chip Exchange, who bought out the former's remaining stock).

The denominations were sold as racks in stages, and were priced based on condition (and many denoms were offered at two or three levels: good condition, very good condition, and excellent condition). Some versions were also available in 'mint'/unused condition.

At one point, I owned over ten of the offered chip versions, excluding any of the simplistic and unimpressive (to me) oversize-inlay $5 / $25 / $500 chips. The $1s were essentially unicorns (like Mapes), and not many white $2 or orange $1000 chips were sold either.

The four $100 chips are simply outstanding, along with the three bear-claw $500s. I had near-mint versions of all the hundo versions; the $500s had more wear but still excellent and very playable.

No other chip offering in my memory had such a staggering amount of available choices.

I still have the pink $5s (relabeled as 20th Century quarters) and the red brick $100s (as part of my mixed-casino 818-spotted tourney set).
 
MeridianFC said:
Not sure if you are joking or not. The Casablanca casino was actually in Aruba. I think they’ve been shut for a decade. IIRC there was another casino in its place but I think that might be shut too.
Click to expand...
Just joking around, since the thread title is simply "lets talk Casablanca", and it's pretty well known that I have a set of at least 1500 of the chips.

Chips and ships, what's the difference? :cool

(Casablanca tomorrow -- no chips, very little food, almost no alcohol -- and this year, I hope to leave Casablanca without stitches below my right eye...)
 
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ovo said:
I believe the large inlays are a later run and are not leaded, another very interesting point is that some of the demons have aligned labels with the spots, and I can’t think of another casino that did this.
Click to expand...
I’d love to see a study (since I don’t think we’ll ever see documentation, even if it exists) to tell us how good of an indicator textured inlays are of lead content. You can see the texture on the gray 818 $100 - i’d bet those are full of lead.
I did have a chance to play with those pink 218 $5s not too long ago. They felt unleaded to me (though there’s always the question if they could be partially leaded, if that’s even an actual thing.). And those had the slightly larger, glossy inlays.
 
upNdown said:
I’d love to see a study (since I don’t think we’ll ever see documentation, even if it exists) to tell us how good of an indicator textured inlays are of lead content. You can see the texture on the gray 818 $100 - i’d bet those are full of lead.
I did have a chance to play with those pink 218 $5s not too long ago. They felt unleaded to me (though there’s always the question if they could be partially leaded, if that’s even an actual thing.). And those had the slightly larger, glossy inlays.
Click to expand...
In my experience textured inlays are almost directly correlated to lead with the exception of California chips from the 90's
 

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