Rare Mold Sourcing (2 Viewers)

Gus

Gus

Two Pair
Supporter
Joined
Nov 23, 2024
Messages
295
Reaction score
470
Location
Minnesota, USA
I'm about a month into my quest to get every mold from Eisenstadt's list, and am broadening into filling out Bud Jones plastics and other legible sets (obscure home-market stuff generally excluded).

Most retailers and eBay sellers don't list chips by their mold, "Mold ID," or manufacturer, all of which are very helpful when trying to track down specific molds. This leaves me with scrolling through thousands of listings squinting at the details on chips and occasionally striking gold with a chip I don't have at a reasonable price (ideally under $10).

My longer term plan is to dig into each mold, figure out its history of creation, manufacturers over time, etc. But for now I'm looking for tips to find rare molds. Below are the ones I'm missing. I've found two of them, but at $20 (chain) for one and $160 for a set of 4 of the other (24 suits)

Any pointers would be appreciated!

MD 92a "Braid" 16 ridges
MD-92b Rope 11 ridges
MD-83 "Candelabra" which is appears to be the Stakis casino house mold, so a bit less interesting
MD-16a 16 Suits + "CARO"
MD-18 Pips 4x4 + 4x "C"
MD-33 24 Suits
MD-42 Chain 16x Links
MD-38c Paulson Suits 4x4 + THC
MD-38d Clubs 16x
MD-29 "Courts & Numerals" 2345678910JQKA"
MD-4 Dice and Diamonds (weird diamonds)
MD-73 Dolphins 4x (maybe the same plastic or manufacturer as the Dragons and Mermaids?)
MD-55a Dots 16x
MD-37 Pips 8x + Horseshoe 2x
MD-101 Feathers / Leaves
MD-23 N or NV 12x
MD-105 Ridge Mold
MD-59 Trapezoids
MD-13a Steamboat

chips.jpeg
 
I don't have any leads for you, but just want to say that this is an awesome idea and project! Good luck with the search!
 
BoyWonder said:
I don't have any leads for you, but just want to say that this is an awesome idea and project! Good luck with the search!
Click to expand...
Thanks BoyWonder! It's part compulsive treasure hunt, and part "huh, I can't find this resource anywhere, maybe I could just make it"

Each 'stack' below is a unique or near-unique mold, with cheap home stuff on the left, then casino plastics, ceramics, and trad clays towards the right. If you look at Eisenstadt's "Mold ID" list this includes every one except those shown in the first post here.

Barrels/shuffle stacks in the back started as one from each manufacturer that I could find and have uhh, ballooned.

Much of this sourced right from the PCF classifieds, thanks all!

chips.jpeg
 
I'm also a rare mold collector. I have duplicates of some that you are still looking for. Of the ones you posted, I would say MD-55a, Md-92a, MD-92b will be the hardest to find.

There are also a few antique and modern clay molds that Eisenstadt never got around to listing, including several non-standard size Paulson chips.

If I'm lucky, maybe you'll have duplicates of a couple I am still looking for. I'll drop you a PM.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Gus
Thank you CardRally for the generous offer. That is a rare and hard to find chip mold. Fortunately, I got one from Eisenstadt directly many years ago. I think I have only seen it on his website.

Some of the ones I am looking for are ones not listed by Eisenstadt. For example, the Tower & Spear mold (PGI china clay), the Medium Greek mold (made by BCC), the Spade in Club mold (also called Two Face Poker mold), also made by BCC.

If you or anyone has duplicates of those, I have even rarer chip mold chips to trade.
 

Attachments

  • chipo1.png
    chipo1.png
    274.5 KB · Views: 50
  • chipo2.png
    chipo2.png
    257.2 KB · Views: 51
  • chipo3.png
    chipo3.png
    515.9 KB · Views: 57
You’re welcome.
I haven’t seen those three but I will let you know if I ever do
 
Gus you’ll need to add an “obtainability” metric. I’m interested in slowly building out my heads up set collection with an ever large representation of molds which is a much steeper requirement than just a single. I’m not compulsive for it to have ever Eisenstad mold. That’s impossible. But would be cool to build out racks of some of the moderately rare molds that might only be in playable quantities at the 40/40/20 breakdown
 
CardRally said:
View attachment 1506205
Never seen the mold on this Apache Casino Fort Sill chip before. Looks like plastic to me
https://ebay.us/m/8Exqbs
Click to expand...
That’s the “gemstone” diamond, and I believe Sun-fly sells them among others. Ceramic/hybrid. Very little casino usage, but like you’ve found there’s a couple :)

Totally missed your earlier post with the box full of chains, what a find!
 
Ahh, I pretty much only scroll “casino chips” on eBay so that’s probably why I missed it before.
No worries, yeah that is quite the collection haha
 
Machine said:
Not sure if this is up your alley

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/media/albums/stralka.1992/
Click to expand...
Thanks for linking to these, I haven't seen them before.

Do you know if they're compression clay? If so I'll dig more into it. If they're cheapo ABS plastic I still might add them to the master list, which I introduced in this thread:
https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/molds-industry-master-index.130326/

Molds for plastic are fairly easy to make, and so there's dozens of home market chip molds sold which I'm slowly adding to the big list. Then there's just novelty products which fairly closely resemble poker chips, but man there's 1000's of them and they're basically just cheap trinkets and so I don't want to add them to a list of chip molds.

No disdain for plastic molds! Just a sort of weary "ok are these poker chips or are these corporate promotional products, drink tokens, challenge coins, etc..."
 
Gus said:
If they're cheapo ABS plastic
Click to expand...
They are plastic but not slugged. @surfik has more details, I think. A few people chimed in that the quality was very high. I think it was a German company that was only around for a short time; unique for sure.
 
Machine said:
They are plastic but not slugged. @surfik has more details, I think. A few people chimed in that the quality was very high. I think it was a German company that was only around for a short time; unique for sure.
Click to expand...
Ah, great. I'll poke around and see what I can learn.

This is precisely the type of chip I do like to dig into as it meant there was a company with a vision that tried to get going and... didn't work out! Very different from someone or some brand getting a quickie plastic chip made for a board game or spring break giveaway.
 
CardRally said:
MD-18 if it is still on your wanted list
View attachment 1507731
https://ebay.us/m/UKNqaU
Click to expand...
Great find! Just picked one up. The link you provided either got bought or isn't working for me.

There's a couple more of the same mold with the same hotstamp if anyone else is intereste:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=andy's+san+jose&_sacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313

Since folks rarely list the mold of a chip sometimes you just need to know the club name and bam! There's a bunch for sale!

Much appreciated @CardRally
 
Drop the apostrophe from Andy’s San Jose and you will find two more haha.
Post your updated want list sometime and I will keep my eye out
 
  • Like
Reactions: Gus
CardRally said:
Drop the apostrophe from Andy’s San Jose and you will find two more haha.
Post your updated want list sometime and I will keep my eye out
Click to expand...
Probably more info than you need, but here's what I'm on the hunt for. Before too long I'll do formal photos of the whole collection and hopefully get a database page similar to Eisenstadt's up and running for Chip Identification, history, etc...

More Recent/current:

BCC Medium Greek Key
TINA's new Jester Hat
Stralkas German mystery co

Vintage:
Dots 16x (MD-55a), a weird old clay thing that likely never saw casino play
N / "NV" (MD-23)
Braid/Rope/Cord 11x Ridges
Braid/Rope/Cord 16x Ridges (the 18x ridged rope is commonly found)
Dolphin/Porpoise (plastic?)
Trapezoids (plastic?)
Leaves MD-101 (not flowers)
Suits 8x Dice 2x (plastic) 1 rack available on eBay for $100 https://www.ebay.com/itm/145687745818

Paulson Weird:

Top Hat No Cane (plastic) MD-75
Coffee & Biscuit / Saucer and Cookie, a weird THC knockoff maybe China Clay?
Top Hat Paulson + Value/Denomination (non-house-mold)
RFID WSOP 4 top hat's + "WSOP" on rim (available in classifieds for $25 + shipping)


The following are mostly cheapo ABS plastic molds that I don't have yet, but am not obsessed with... available for sale but in 25 or 50 qty plus shipping...


Mold
horseshoe lucky
Spartan
outlaw
phoneix
cards plus fleur de lis?
train tracks?
Dunes but Jokers?
sun things 6x
cheapy diamonds
stars misc
[td]
https://www.discountpokershop.com/25pc-135g-lucky-horseshoe-clay-poker-chips-colors-p-606.html
[/td][td]
https://www.discountpokershop.com/25pc-135g-spartan-clay-poker-chips-colors-p-733.html
[/td][td]
[/td][td]
[/td][td]
[/td][td]
[/td][td]
[/td][td]
[/td][td]
[/td][td]
[/td]


The master spreadsheet is public and reflects most of the above, but I need to run through and update it all. The "Status" of my collection is indicated in column U which shows a "y" for "Yes I have it" or seeking, coming, etc...
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wyvFuVUf718j5bkU7oW5lSu-UWjQ_0CyjW2TdeuDQAs/edit?usp=sharing
 
Last edited:

Create an account or login to comment

You must be a member in order to leave a comment

Create account

Create an account and join our community. It's easy!

Register

Log in

Already have an account? Log in here.

Similar threads

pltrgyst
Article: "Vintage Poker Chips"
Replies
19
Views
5K
Percy7
Percy7
Back
Top Bottom
Cart

Cart

Total -