Old clay composites I got in college. Anyone know anything about them? (2 Viewers)

wmcstudios

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Check out these old clay composites I got way back in college (12 years ago now, sheesh)! Anyone know anything about them?

I didn’t know what what I had back then, and now learning more about chips from PCF I think they might actually be nice (not a fan of the center sticker though). I am missing only one single $1 chip and it’s driving my OCD mad. If anyone knows where I could find a $1 chip for this set I’d love to find one!!

Other than that it’d be cool to learn from someone if these are China clays or if they might have more value. The weight, texture, sound and faded finish is very similar to higher quality clays. See photos. Thanks for looking!!
 

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They're cool looking chips! But note that "clay composite" is a marketing term that means "injection-molded plastic", which is what these appear to be. Which is fine if you like them! I don't recognize the chip, but they don't match any of the china clays (which are also injection-molded plastic chips, but a little bit nicer than mass-market injection-molded plastic chips) that I know about.

Good luck on your quest to find a matching chip! Some of these older plastic sets can be hard to find duplicates for. There's a few designs that have been around for years and have been made by many different manufacturers (notably dice chips), but there's also a lot of designs that get one or two production runs, and then once they're sold out at retail they never get seen again.

Just out of curiosity, do you know how much they weigh? That would help narrow down the chip, and tell us whether it has a metal slug or not.
 
They're cool looking chips! But note that "clay composite" is a marketing term that means "injection-molded plastic", which is what these appear to be. Which is fine if you like them! I don't recognize the chip, but they don't match any of the china clays (which are also injection-molded plastic chips, but a little bit nicer than mass-market injection-molded plastic chips) that I know about.

Good luck on your quest to find a matching chip! Some of these older plastic sets can be hard to find duplicates for. There's a few designs that have been around for years and have been made by many different manufacturers (notably dice chips), but there's also a lot of designs that get one or two production runs, and then once they're sold out at retail they never get seen again.

Just out of curiosity, do you know how much they weigh? That would help narrow down the chip, and tell us whether it has a metal slug or not.
Thanks for the info! I’ll weigh one when I get to the office Monday, we have a small scale there. I’ve had plastic injection molded chips before - these feel and sound different, more like chips I’ve payed with at the Turning Stone casino. They’re about that weight and feel... makes me wonder if they’re a Chinese chip that was meant to mimick clays like paulsons. I’ll take a video and see if it can capture the sounds and other details. I’m sure they’re still injection moulded... just a higher quality material than the standard plastic ones.
 
I don't think those are the same chips. The OP's are two-color, with pips (dot and diamonds) on the rolling edge; the ones on homepokertourney are single color, and while we can't see the rolling edge, the review suggests that it doesn't have any markings.

The face mold designs are similar but definitely not the same. Aside from being two-color, on the OP's chips the suit pips run club-heart-spade-diamond clockwise on all the faces he's shown, which suggests that they run in that order on both sides of the chips. But on the chip shown on homepokertourney the suit pips run club-heart-spade-diamond counterclockwise.
 
I don't think those are the same chips. The OP's are two-color, with pips (dot and diamonds) on the rolling edge; the ones on homepokertourney are single color, and while we can't see the rolling edge, the review suggests that it doesn't have any markings.

The face mold designs are similar but definitely not the same. Aside from being two-color, on the OP's chips the suit pips run club-heart-spade-diamond clockwise on all the faces he's shown, which suggests that they run in that order on both sides of the chips. But on the chip shown on homepokertourney the suit pips run club-heart-spade-diamond counterclockwise.

the suits in OP's are also flush with the face of the chip, whereas the ones in the review linked are embossed.

the are more similar to the last entry on this page:

https://homepokertourney.org/reviews/poker_chip_review_discount.htm
 
I'd say those are exactly the chips that the OP has:
  • Two-color
  • A series of diamonds and circles on the rolling edge
  • Sold with a gaudy label (albeit a different label than the OP has, but that's not unusual)
... except that these too have the pips running in the opposite direction as the OP's chips. @wmcstudios , can you check your chips to see if the pips run the same way (clubs-hearts-diamonds-spades clockwise) on both faces of each chip?
 
I'd say those are exactly the chips that the OP has:
  • Two-color
  • A series of diamonds and circles on the rolling edge
  • Sold with a gaudy label (albeit a different label than the OP has, but that's not unusual)
... except that these too have the pips running in the opposite direction as the OP's chips. @wmcstudios , can you check your chips to see if the pips run the same way (clubs-hearts-diamonds-spades clockwise) on both faces of each chip?

the only thing that stopped me from saying they are exactly the same chips is that those were stated to not have edge spots, but i was misinterpreting that as a solid rolling edge as well. but now i see you are right, these are almost certainly the same chips.
 
I'd say those are exactly the chips that the OP has:
  • Two-color
  • A series of diamonds and circles on the rolling edge
  • Sold with a gaudy label (albeit a different label than the OP has, but that's not unusual)
... except that these too have the pips running in the opposite direction as the OP's chips. @wmcstudios , can you check your chips to see if the pips run the same way (clubs-hearts-diamonds-spades clockwise) on both faces of each chip?

Maybe OP got his set in an initial run before cost cutting saw the manufacturer produce a lesser chip on the same mold. This happened with the cheap Cardinal chips from Walmart back about 15yrs ago...the first batch they sold were honestly pretty good...then the next run was pure junk.

Are the inlays raised stickers? or were the chips partially recessed so flush? Looks like a nice run of Injection chips that saw a label applied at some point.
 
Maybe OP got his set in an initial run before cost cutting saw the manufacturer produce a lesser chip on the same mold.
If my theory about the order of the suit pips is correct, it's not the same mold... just one that's nearly the same. Could be a mold made by a different manufacturer that was intended to be "the same" but had a minor detail different, or could be the same manufacturer that needed to make a second set of molds for whatever reason.
 
Hey @CrazyEddie @mtl mile end @wolfpack @Kensco @raynmanas @philhut -

Thank you so much for digging into this - I learned more than I could have hoped to on my own! Homepokertourney.org seems like a great website... I went down the rabbit hole there for a while.

It does seem to be the exact same mold, feel, sound and composition as described in the link in @raynmanas post. The colors and patterns are different, but everything else is spot-on. I just weighed them and the weight seems to be averaged at 11.5g. See photos. Thanks again everyone!! I might have a tough time tracking down a replacement for that one $1 chip that's missing. That or I'll just sell them as a set of 499 if anyone will buy them.

They are really nice regardless!! They feel and sound a lot like the quality of chip at my local casino (Turning Stone). I might find that last $1 chip and then re-label these with my company logo or something.
 

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Maybe OP got his set in an initial run before cost cutting saw the manufacturer produce a lesser chip on the same mold. This happened with the cheap Cardinal chips from Walmart back about 15yrs ago...the first batch they sold were honestly pretty good...then the next run was pure junk.

Are the inlays raised stickers? or were the chips partially recessed so flush? Looks like a nice run of Injection chips that saw a label applied at some point.

They are ever-so-slightly recessed so the label is as flush as possible with the edge. They're really not bad for what might be considered between dice chips and china clays!
 

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