New member here - what is "below Ken pricing"?
I'm new-ish here too, but have dived in deep. A PCF veteran can correct me if I've got this wrong, but I think it's...
"Group Buy" = open solicitation to members to place a large order with a vendor. Sometimes this is because the vendor will only sell in large quantities, and so somebody organizes $10k+ orders with each buyer specifying what they want (e.g. 600 chips in these 5 denominations). When it's all pooled together, money is sent to the vendor, and chips are eventually delivered to the organizer, who forwards them to the buyers. Prices are transparent and set up front, except unplanned shipping costs or other miscellaneous.
"
NAGB" = "Not a Group Buy" = one or more members collaborate privately (secretly?) to pool funds to place a large order of chips from a vendor that requires large orders. It's possible this vendor won't sell to the public, instead selling only to licensed casino/cardroom operators, or an insider at the company can perhaps be persuaded to fill an order known to not be following their rules. Once the order is delivered, it's announced on PCF, and chip sets are offered for sale along with sample sets, barrels, etc. Prices are set by the original group of buyers, but profit (or loss) sharing is not made public. One can assume if all chips are sold out a good chunk of money has been made by making lots of people happy with exclusive brand new chips that are not easily obtained.
Individuals may also do the entirety of this "
NAGB" thing themselves, or at least present themselves as the sole person responsible for the creation of the chips. Again they get to set their prices and see what happens. Both individuals and "
NAGB" groups must market their chips, take nice photos, perhaps tell a bit of a story, and credibly present them as authentic (thankfully it's still very difficult to credibly counterfeit high-end chips).
Folks on the forum who have not been invited into the inner circle of group buys (thus the
NAGB) have felt jilted or disrespected or worse and apparently that has caused drama in the past. Access to
NAGB is mysterious, and is perhaps cool-kids cliquey, or obtained via arcane rituals performed on mountaintops during thunderstorms where gods of fortune and fate are summoned by going "all in" spiritually... or maybe just a willingness to write a 6-figure check no-questions-asked.
"Ken Pricing" refers to the original prices at which the Tiger Palace chips were sold by a user here named Ken. I do find it somewhat funny that these prices don't account for inflation, nor opportunity cost of the money had it been invested elsewhere in the meantime, but it'd frankly feel unfair if someone posted "Ken Pricing + 13% to account for inflation."
Group Buys of chips and other things (dealer buttons, tabletops...) are frequently run for vendors that openly sell to the public, such as Justin Carothers who coordinates larger buys of
TINA chips for members here, securing better pricing and shipping rates than an individual can do (probably), and perhaps some exclusivity in molds or designs that
TINA will only offer through him as he's driving a good amount of business to them.
That's my understanding, would love to be corrected wherever I'm wrong! I personally have not been to the aforementioned mountaintops, but would be interested to read the terms and conditions!
