Services Sale of Classic Poker Chips Completed!! (4 Viewers)

CPC_Mike said:
All right, since you demanded so nicely.... But now that I own the Chocolate Factory I'll have to revert to being the mysterious Willy Wonka.
Here were the first chips I had made 11 years ago. Our cash game chips in front and tournament chips behind. The chips are fairly basic and design isn't my specialty. Fortunately, I'm now a manufacture and not a designer! We've used these chips weekly for about a decade and they still look brand new.

View attachment 1456159

We play in a barn at my house that I renovated so the home game is called the Poker Barn. There's a ghosted image of the Barn on the inlay. As you can tell, the 5000 tournament chip and $100 cash chip don't match the sets. I had these done recently to test out some ideas. I absolutely love the pink dayglo color and I think I like the 7/8 inlay size better as well.

Here's some of the other things I built. As you'll quickly realize, yes, I'm obsessive. I believe if somethings worth doing it's worth overdoing.

This was the first poker table I built almost 20 years ago. Yes, those are Bicycle cards and chips. We now only use Copag cards.

View attachment 1456165

While I loved the look of the racetrack I quickly learned to hate the utility of it. It made way too much noise when people shuffled chips on it and I certainly didn't want to encourage drinks on the table with the cup holders. But I made the center section so it could be replaced with different surfaces to try out. I'm not sure what felt this one was in the picture but I eventually settled on 'gaming suede'. There's nothing better. I also designed it so the entire railing can be replaced and I built a bunch of different railings with different fabric to find the best.

View attachment 1456170

This was with the 'speed cloth' center section. Speed Cloth has too rough a feel for me.
The next version got rid of the racetrack, widened the rail, and used better material, added a card shuffler and added LED lights. The lights are fully configurable with software I wrote and in tournaments I can have them automatically flash at the end of levels, etc.

View attachment 1456171

But the shuffler was too loud, had to be constantly filled, and got in the way of the cards so I removed it.

View attachment 1456173

Still wasn't perfect. Too many folks at my home game suck at dealing and would have a lot of trouble dealing from seats at the end. So I built a round table.

View attachment 1456175

This is what we currently use. It can hold about 10 people but it gets uncomfortable with more than 8. I built it around the max size of gaming suede I could get. It's much simpler for folks to deal and pots are generally within arms length for folks. the biggest thing it's missing is a Poker Barn logo. Like I said, design ain't my thing.

Okay, the Mustang. Classic Mustangs are my favorite cars. When I turned 50 my wife bought me a 1968 Mustang as a restoration project. I had never welded, done any real automotive work and had never painted.

I stripped it down to nothing and cut out all of the rusted parts.

View attachment 1456177

Then rebuilt it completely

View attachment 1456178

It took me about 5 different choices of red before I found one that liked. Remember this when I'm crafting a new yellow!

View attachment 1456179

Then I did infinite spray outs to perfect my technique and learn the best methods for sanding that would give the best shine

View attachment 1456180

The result:

View attachment 1456182View attachment 1456183View attachment 1456184View attachment 1456185

View attachment 1456186View attachment 1456187

Okay, that's all you get. Back to being Willy Wonka!
Click to expand...
dibs on the mustang
 
CPC_Mike said:
All right, since you demanded so nicely.... But now that I own the Chocolate Factory I'll have to revert to being the mysterious Willy Wonka.
Here were the first chips I had made 11 years ago. Our cash game chips in front and tournament chips behind. The chips are fairly basic and design isn't my specialty. Fortunately, I'm now a manufacture and not a designer! We've used these chips weekly for about a decade and they still look brand new.

View attachment 1456159

We play in a barn at my house that I renovated so the home game is called the Poker Barn. There's a ghosted image of the Barn on the inlay. As you can tell, the 5000 tournament chip and $100 cash chip don't match the sets. I had these done recently to test out some ideas. I absolutely love the pink dayglo color and I think I like the 7/8 inlay size better as well.
Click to expand...
Dibs on your old set once you make yourself 10-20 more sets. :)
 
Suited Connector said:
Wonderful news!
Click to expand...
Yes yes... in with a new yellow, out with dayglo peach.

Wish Monkey Paw GIF by Leroy Patterson
 
CPC_Mike said:
geez guys, I'm not about to die. I think. Is there something about this company that no one told me????
Click to expand...
lol. Didn’t think I insinuated you were dying. I just assumed being Willy Wonka, you’d be making many more quality sets for yourself. The dibs was just in jest. :)
 
This is far down the list I’m sure, but if building more readily available stock sets are something you would entertain (as about 16 posts about this have been mentioned already ha) there are plenty of amazing designers on here who I’m sure would love to help.

And Congrats! You have hundreds of people on here to bounce ideas off of and help you make this a successful endeavor.
 
divinerites said:
This a brilliant idea !!! Does it works with a Raspberry Pi or something similar ?
Click to expand...
Arduino wired to the lights and then an iOS app I wrote that communicates via bluetooth to the Arduino to tell it what to do. Honestly, it ended up being too gimmicky. I would have the lights go to yellow when down to a minute left in a level and then go red when the level runs out. But the different colors made the cards difficult to read at times. We still use the basic tournament software all the time but I only use the LED light interface to control the color and brightness (always white) and I turned off the other stuff.
 
CPC_Mike said:
Arduino wired to the lights and then an iOS app I wrote that communicates via bluetooth to the Arduino to tell it what to do. Honestly, it ended up being too gimmicky. I would have the lights go to yellow when down to a minute left in a level and then go red when the level runs out. But the different colors made the cards difficult to read at times. We still use the basic tournament software all the time but I only use the LED light interface to control the color and brightness (always white) and I turned off the other stuff.
Click to expand...
This could be a nice "on the shelf" box for table builders. On 67th position on the todo list :wtf:
I never saw anything like this. Brillant and so simple/neat idea. Love this.

CPC is in good hand from what I see. Congrats.
 
divinerites said:
This could be a nice "on the shelf" box for table builders. On 67th position on the todo list :wtf:
I never saw anything like this. Brillant and so simple/neat idea. Love this.

CPC is in good hand from what I see. Congrats.
Click to expand...

Thanks! Next step would be upgrading to the LED matrix lights and then I could put the timer, level, blinds, etc. right there on the rail. Too many projects, not enough time.
 
CPC_Mike said:
All right, since you demanded so nicely.... But now that I own the Chocolate Factory I'll have to revert to being the mysterious Willy Wonka.
Here were the first chips I had made 11 years ago. Our cash game chips in front and tournament chips behind. The chips are fairly basic and design isn't my specialty. Fortunately, I'm now a manufacture and not a designer! We've used these chips weekly for about a decade and they still look brand new.

View attachment 1456159

We play in a barn at my house that I renovated so the home game is called the Poker Barn. There's a ghosted image of the Barn on the inlay. As you can tell, the 5000 tournament chip and $100 cash chip don't match the sets. I had these done recently to test out some ideas. I absolutely love the pink dayglo color and I think I like the 7/8 inlay size better as well.

Here's some of the other things I built. As you'll quickly realize, yes, I'm obsessive. I believe if somethings worth doing it's worth overdoing.

This was the first poker table I built almost 20 years ago. Yes, those are Bicycle cards and chips. We now only use Copag cards.

View attachment 1456165

While I loved the look of the racetrack I quickly learned to hate the utility of it. It made way too much noise when people shuffled chips on it and I certainly didn't want to encourage drinks on the table with the cup holders. But I made the center section so it could be replaced with different surfaces to try out. I'm not sure what felt this one was in the picture but I eventually settled on 'gaming suede'. There's nothing better. I also designed it so the entire railing can be replaced and I built a bunch of different railings with different fabric to find the best.

View attachment 1456170

This was with the 'speed cloth' center section. Speed Cloth has too rough a feel for me.
The next version got rid of the racetrack, widened the rail, and used better material, added a card shuffler and added LED lights. The lights are fully configurable with software I wrote and in tournaments I can have them automatically flash at the end of levels, etc.

View attachment 1456171

But the shuffler was too loud, had to be constantly filled, and got in the way of the cards so I removed it.

View attachment 1456173

Still wasn't perfect. Too many folks at my home game suck at dealing and would have a lot of trouble dealing from seats at the end. So I built a round table.

View attachment 1456175

This is what we currently use. It can hold about 10 people but it gets uncomfortable with more than 8. I built it around the max size of gaming suede I could get. It's much simpler for folks to deal and pots are generally within arms length for folks. the biggest thing it's missing is a Poker Barn logo. Like I said, design ain't my thing.

Okay, the Mustang. Classic Mustangs are my favorite cars. When I turned 50 my wife bought me a 1968 Mustang as a restoration project. I had never welded, done any real automotive work and had never painted.

I stripped it down to nothing and cut out all of the rusted parts.

View attachment 1456177

Then rebuilt it completely

View attachment 1456178

It took me about 5 different choices of red before I found one that liked. Remember this when I'm crafting a new yellow!

View attachment 1456179

Then I did infinite spray outs to perfect my technique and learn the best methods for sanding that would give the best shine

View attachment 1456180

The result:

View attachment 1456182View attachment 1456183View attachment 1456184View attachment 1456185

View attachment 1456186View attachment 1456187

Okay, that's all you get. Back to being Willy Wonka!
Click to expand...

IMG_3169.gif
 
Welcome Mike!

This is quite the endeavor and our chipping community is thankful that you have taken the reins.

It is integral to be a member of this community and listening to the many voices of your customers. You will find that we are all chip enthusiasts and we are passionate about our hobby. We will stay as loyal and committed to you and the future of CPC as you are to us.

Thank you again!!
 
So about the small batch of quad moon with four dots...

Also, @Skagglio has a table with LEDs behind a diffuser. For dealers choice, he would change the light color to your choice for that Orbitz then manually change it to red if someone was all in.
 
David Spragg said:
Compression molded clay chips can't be made with recesses for applying your own inlays. Because inlays are inserted into the blanks before pressing it makes it inefficient and expensive to hold too many off-the-shelf options.
Click to expand...

Couldn’t dies be made which include a recess?

For example, looking at this (in)famous photo of some Key Wests being made, if the round space within the H-mold were raised instead of recessed, wouldn’t that result in an area where a sticker could be applied?

Or would that cause other complications, such as too much displacement of clay?

IMG_9125.jpeg
IMG_9124.png
 
Last edited:
Taghkanic said:
Couldn’t dies be made which include a recess?

For example, looking at this (in)famous photo of some Key Wests being made, if the round space within the H-mold were raised instead of recessed, wouldn’t that result in an area where a sticker could be applied?

Or would that cause other complications, such as too much displacement of clay?

View attachment 1456454View attachment 1456455
Click to expand...
If new dies are to be made (which is expensive), I'd rather them be resurrected Roman molds. (hey, how about that?!)
 
Taghkanic said:
Couldn’t dies be made which include a recess?

For example, looking at this (in)famous photo of some Key Wests being made, if the round space within the H-mold were raised instead of recessed, wouldn’t that result in an area where a sticker could be applied?

Or would that cause other complications, such as too much displacement of clay?

View attachment 1456454View attachment 1456455
Click to expand...
A set of dies, even if they could be made nowadays, is in excess of $75,000. In any event if would interfere with the displacement of the clay, yes.
 
David Spragg said:
A set of dies, even if they could be made nowadays, is in excess of $75,000. In any event if would interfere with the displacement of the clay, yes.
Click to expand...

Understood… Though I wonder if $75K is really that big of an expense in the context of purchasing and reimagining an established business… given that there is an established base of both existing and interested customers. And that equipment costs like that can usually be amortized out over a period of years (OK, I’m not an accountant, but).
 
Taghkanic said:
Understood… Though I wonder if $75K is really that big of an expense in the context of purchasing and reimagining an established business… given that there is an established base of both existing and interested customers. And that equipment costs like that can usually be amortized out over a period of years (OK, I’m not an accountant, but).
Click to expand...
A fun exercise in any business is to measure the expense against your net profit to sales ratio.

For every $100,000 in sales/revenue at an auto dealership, the store will net profit on average $3,000 so their net to sales ratio is 3%. This is an example of a business with thin margins (hence being extremely cautious to expenses).

Let’s assume this business (CPC) is extremely profitable and is 15% net to sales ratio. Not gross profit. Net profit to sales/revenue.

Take the expense $75,000 / divided by their net to sales ratio .15 (15%) = $500,000

It will take $500,000 in sales (revenue) to absorb a $75,000 net expense.

That would be 100 $5,000 custom CPC sets to absorb the expense of a $75,000 die.
 
Last edited:

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