I have been doing quite a lot of research on chip materials and companies, although that seems to be an industry that has changed quite a bit over time. I bought some samples from Apache to get a feel for some various materials, then settled on their Monaco Casino CC chips just to have something to knock around but of the lower end chips they sale I really preferred how these look. Then I found a site that sold old casino chips and I have been toying around with that a little. I have a buddy heading to Vegas in June and my thought is to give him some cash and say okay go here and get this from the cage, cause casino Paulsons at Casino face value at least at first is a little easier on the wallet TO A CERTAIN POINT than $2.00 a chip for some low face value chips that won't be sold outside of a 300 piece set. I can't part with $750.00 right now even for a 300 chip Paulson set. Though I have been trying to find more and more information about the Protege chips, which sounds like they were only available for a short time. I REALLY love the design of the Proteges.
Thanks for the welcomes, I'm just getting started with chip collecting and would love to know about as many resources as possible. This seems like a great place to start!