Introducing my “Strong Horse” custom CPC set on the Circle-Square mold. Designed to handle small stakes while having some inflation protection with denominations up to $500.
While I’m tickled by the inlays I must apologize for their origins as clumsy insider jargon and jokes of the Bitcoin world. In fact the existence of this set is downstream of my good fortune as a bitcoin holder who watched the price surpass $100k in late 2024. Time for a treat, I thought, not knowing this would also kick off my journey down the poker chip rabbit hole. (For a brief bitcoin introduction, see the very end of this post.)
Years ago I had stumbled onto a thread about quality poker chips on Twitter, whereupon I discovered my beloved slugged dice chips were but a low rung in the ladder of the chip world. Digging through some messages from that time I found a pointer to CPC. With the first google search I found rumors of impending doom, rumblings that the sole manufacturer of publicly available traditional chips was perhaps on its last legs.
Long story short, a celebratory indulgence led to reviewing a business sale listing and to my first post here on PCF about maybe acquiring CPC as a total outsider. A trip to Maine to evaluate the factory and find a business partner ultimately fell short of a new life path. If I were in my 20’s and without a toddler tugging at my pantleg I would have moved to Portland and set up a bunk room in the front office with a dream of commandeering the next phase of CPC’s storied history.
--
Let’s get into the set. Every denomination has a unique name and date. The name is meant to evoke a plausible poker room setting. The animal theme is loosely tied into bitcoin memes. (NERD ALERT, SKIP AHEAD TO SAVE BRAIN CELLS) The date marks the first time bitcoin crossed 1000x the denomination since I first came onto the scene in 2015. So the $1 shows 2017, and despite bitcoin crossing $1000 in 2013, it didn’t get back there until 2017. The $100 shows 2024, coinciding with bitcoin crossing $100k in 2024. The $500 chip shows 2140, the year when the total bitcoin supply will have been mined. I expect $500k bitcoin long before then.
With some extras to sell as sample sets and keep around the house as shuffle stacks, the offical playable set is 700 chips with a bank just shy of $20k.
The photos are on shot on my custom topper (explained later) and with parts from bitcoin miners. These shoe-box sized computers are integral bitcoin’s functioning (with plenty of controversy, misunderstanding, and general screeching on the internet). I’ve been a hobbyist miner for a few years and these parts are leftovers, long since depreciated and unable to keep up with new generation equipment. They were fun photo props.
$0.25 x 100 “Winter Bear Lodge” (with a nod to the Rounders bear)
$1 x 180 “Honey Badger Saloon” (link to the original honey badger meme, an absurd over-dubbed nature documentary clip)
$5 x 240 “Strong Horse Racetrack” (loosely a reference to network effects, where an established network has a big advantage over newcomers)
$25 x 100 “Bucking Bull Rodeo Room” (bull market = NUMBER GO UP, it's "NGU" technology as they say. Yes, it's cringe)
$100 x 60 “Whale Underground” (a Whale is a big holder, often someone with $1b of bitcoin who obtained it for almost nothing 15 years ago)
$500 x 20 “Shipwrecked Shrimper” (if you ever ask a bitcoiner how much they own [don't do this], they'll surely answer "I tragically lost it all in a boating accident")
I used an AI image generator for the animal images. It took a while to figure out the prompt, with “cut-out” being the best keyword. Each image probably took 50 iterations to get just right with details that weren’t too fine for inlay printing and a mix of highlights on the shapes to give a sense of depth. This was probably the most frustrating step as the AI would bounce around with styles, create the perfect look except with the wrong orientation, etc... “I want this exact whale, but with the back arched more!” No not a whale with 3 tails sprouting from its head!?
As a former professional photographer I’m reasonably handy with Photoshop. This project is much better suited to a program like Illustrator but with enough YouTube tutorials I figured out how to work with text wrapping and other tweaks. In hindsight I should have hired a designer here on PCF at the outset and they could have easily achieved this look based on my various inspirations. Speaking of...
The Bridge City set by @springbox was my closest inspiration. They of course closely resemble dozens of other chips out there, many from decades ago. It’s my favorite chip layout: venue name wrapping around the top, image in the middle, denomination in a different color and finally a smaller text location name.
Color choices are just a Vegas progression (frac excluded) while edge spots were the result of playing with the CPC mold configurator and trying to get a fun progression without directly copying other sets. My favorite is the green quarter-pie.
I made a custom topper with @rjdev7 for my six seater round table and it may be the single ugliest topper to ever exist, worthy of a post onto the FUGLY poker table thread. I found I could fit two round toppers within the maximum allowable dimensions and so one is a classic green while the other is this monstrosity. I photographed a plain Circle-Square chip, then a different chip with the six edge spots and superimposed this over the plain chip and added colors. The final print includes dust, discolorations, and other imperfections from the chip, which hopefully will hide wear-and-tear over the years.
There’s a couple things I would have done differently now that I’ve taken delivery. In the intervening ~9 months I’ve learned a great deal more about chips and come to appreciate subtle design differences. I think the H-Mold would be slightly better. More history with casino usage, a slightly different feel, and better long-term wear characteristics. I certainly would have sprung for shaped inlays too. I wrote them off as silly and insubstantial, but now I see my favorite chips almost always have a shaped inlay for an extra layer of ornament. I think the inlays could have been slightly colored, whether to subtly match the chip color or just to be less blindingly white. Finally, I wish I made a set of ~1000 chips... if it’s a forever set, make it in a forever quantity! That being said, I did increase the total order from about 600 chips to over 800 in early 2025, paying 2025 pricing, in order to add the $500 denomination and add enough extras for sample sets. Speaking of, keep an eye on the Marketplace for sample sets or comment below to be tagged in the sale thread
Thanks for reading, and happy chipping to all
--
Bitcoin, in brief. This is intended to whet the curious reader's appetite, not convince anyone to buy, nor to persuade that bitcoin is good or bad or the future of finance.
Bitcoin is an internet-native fully digital ledger that tracks user balances, with a 24/7/365 payments network that facilitates transfer between users. It is open for anyone to use and offers final settlement in under an hour. It is entirely denominated in its own unit, called Bitcoin. This unit has a fluctuating market price based on free market principles, similar to price of gold. The creator remains unknown to this day, and there is no company or CEO that 'runs' bitcoin. The closest parallel is gold, which is why bitcoin is frequently referred to as "digital gold."
Bitcoin is able to function because it created/discovered/invented 'digital scarcity.' Unlike all other digitally instantiated data, bitcoin units are 'scarce' meaning they cannot be reproduced at near zero marginal cost (colloquially, via copy-and-paste). Governments can easily create new dollar bills (or database entries) and therefore change the total supply of fiat currency in circulation. Gold's supply is practically limited to what's available in the earth's crust. However mere scarcity does not make a thing valuable. I simply wish to say digital scarcity is at the root of bitcoin, and (perhaps unfortunately) the rest of "crypto" broadly (the blockchain being the invention/discovery which enables digital scarcity). Value, savings, wealth, capital, etc... are all strange things for they exist only in the context of humans and civilization.
If you find this interesting, consider diving into bitcoin starting with your favorite entry point.
-adoption of new technology and network effects
-the history of finance, markets, and money in general (qualities of money-ness thru time)
-the politics of modern financial systems, the role of the federal reserve, etc
-distributed systems, consensus governance, anti-fragility of systems, etc
-the role of speculation, arbitrage, and trading in global capital markets
-boom and bust cycles in markets, Austrian-school economics vs Keynesian, etc
Many people have done their homework and concluded bitcoin is doomed, but a blip in financial history. I think it'll be as important as email in a decade or two. And I may change my mind of course. As with many things in this world, only time will tell!
While I’m tickled by the inlays I must apologize for their origins as clumsy insider jargon and jokes of the Bitcoin world. In fact the existence of this set is downstream of my good fortune as a bitcoin holder who watched the price surpass $100k in late 2024. Time for a treat, I thought, not knowing this would also kick off my journey down the poker chip rabbit hole. (For a brief bitcoin introduction, see the very end of this post.)
Years ago I had stumbled onto a thread about quality poker chips on Twitter, whereupon I discovered my beloved slugged dice chips were but a low rung in the ladder of the chip world. Digging through some messages from that time I found a pointer to CPC. With the first google search I found rumors of impending doom, rumblings that the sole manufacturer of publicly available traditional chips was perhaps on its last legs.
Long story short, a celebratory indulgence led to reviewing a business sale listing and to my first post here on PCF about maybe acquiring CPC as a total outsider. A trip to Maine to evaluate the factory and find a business partner ultimately fell short of a new life path. If I were in my 20’s and without a toddler tugging at my pantleg I would have moved to Portland and set up a bunk room in the front office with a dream of commandeering the next phase of CPC’s storied history.
--
Let’s get into the set. Every denomination has a unique name and date. The name is meant to evoke a plausible poker room setting. The animal theme is loosely tied into bitcoin memes. (NERD ALERT, SKIP AHEAD TO SAVE BRAIN CELLS) The date marks the first time bitcoin crossed 1000x the denomination since I first came onto the scene in 2015. So the $1 shows 2017, and despite bitcoin crossing $1000 in 2013, it didn’t get back there until 2017. The $100 shows 2024, coinciding with bitcoin crossing $100k in 2024. The $500 chip shows 2140, the year when the total bitcoin supply will have been mined. I expect $500k bitcoin long before then.
With some extras to sell as sample sets and keep around the house as shuffle stacks, the offical playable set is 700 chips with a bank just shy of $20k.
The photos are on shot on my custom topper (explained later) and with parts from bitcoin miners. These shoe-box sized computers are integral bitcoin’s functioning (with plenty of controversy, misunderstanding, and general screeching on the internet). I’ve been a hobbyist miner for a few years and these parts are leftovers, long since depreciated and unable to keep up with new generation equipment. They were fun photo props.
$0.25 x 100 “Winter Bear Lodge” (with a nod to the Rounders bear)
$1 x 180 “Honey Badger Saloon” (link to the original honey badger meme, an absurd over-dubbed nature documentary clip)
$5 x 240 “Strong Horse Racetrack” (loosely a reference to network effects, where an established network has a big advantage over newcomers)
$25 x 100 “Bucking Bull Rodeo Room” (bull market = NUMBER GO UP, it's "NGU" technology as they say. Yes, it's cringe)
$100 x 60 “Whale Underground” (a Whale is a big holder, often someone with $1b of bitcoin who obtained it for almost nothing 15 years ago)
$500 x 20 “Shipwrecked Shrimper” (if you ever ask a bitcoiner how much they own [don't do this], they'll surely answer "I tragically lost it all in a boating accident")
I used an AI image generator for the animal images. It took a while to figure out the prompt, with “cut-out” being the best keyword. Each image probably took 50 iterations to get just right with details that weren’t too fine for inlay printing and a mix of highlights on the shapes to give a sense of depth. This was probably the most frustrating step as the AI would bounce around with styles, create the perfect look except with the wrong orientation, etc... “I want this exact whale, but with the back arched more!” No not a whale with 3 tails sprouting from its head!?
As a former professional photographer I’m reasonably handy with Photoshop. This project is much better suited to a program like Illustrator but with enough YouTube tutorials I figured out how to work with text wrapping and other tweaks. In hindsight I should have hired a designer here on PCF at the outset and they could have easily achieved this look based on my various inspirations. Speaking of...
The Bridge City set by @springbox was my closest inspiration. They of course closely resemble dozens of other chips out there, many from decades ago. It’s my favorite chip layout: venue name wrapping around the top, image in the middle, denomination in a different color and finally a smaller text location name.
Color choices are just a Vegas progression (frac excluded) while edge spots were the result of playing with the CPC mold configurator and trying to get a fun progression without directly copying other sets. My favorite is the green quarter-pie.
I made a custom topper with @rjdev7 for my six seater round table and it may be the single ugliest topper to ever exist, worthy of a post onto the FUGLY poker table thread. I found I could fit two round toppers within the maximum allowable dimensions and so one is a classic green while the other is this monstrosity. I photographed a plain Circle-Square chip, then a different chip with the six edge spots and superimposed this over the plain chip and added colors. The final print includes dust, discolorations, and other imperfections from the chip, which hopefully will hide wear-and-tear over the years.
There’s a couple things I would have done differently now that I’ve taken delivery. In the intervening ~9 months I’ve learned a great deal more about chips and come to appreciate subtle design differences. I think the H-Mold would be slightly better. More history with casino usage, a slightly different feel, and better long-term wear characteristics. I certainly would have sprung for shaped inlays too. I wrote them off as silly and insubstantial, but now I see my favorite chips almost always have a shaped inlay for an extra layer of ornament. I think the inlays could have been slightly colored, whether to subtly match the chip color or just to be less blindingly white. Finally, I wish I made a set of ~1000 chips... if it’s a forever set, make it in a forever quantity! That being said, I did increase the total order from about 600 chips to over 800 in early 2025, paying 2025 pricing, in order to add the $500 denomination and add enough extras for sample sets. Speaking of, keep an eye on the Marketplace for sample sets or comment below to be tagged in the sale thread
Thanks for reading, and happy chipping to all
--
Bitcoin, in brief. This is intended to whet the curious reader's appetite, not convince anyone to buy, nor to persuade that bitcoin is good or bad or the future of finance.
Bitcoin is an internet-native fully digital ledger that tracks user balances, with a 24/7/365 payments network that facilitates transfer between users. It is open for anyone to use and offers final settlement in under an hour. It is entirely denominated in its own unit, called Bitcoin. This unit has a fluctuating market price based on free market principles, similar to price of gold. The creator remains unknown to this day, and there is no company or CEO that 'runs' bitcoin. The closest parallel is gold, which is why bitcoin is frequently referred to as "digital gold."
Bitcoin is able to function because it created/discovered/invented 'digital scarcity.' Unlike all other digitally instantiated data, bitcoin units are 'scarce' meaning they cannot be reproduced at near zero marginal cost (colloquially, via copy-and-paste). Governments can easily create new dollar bills (or database entries) and therefore change the total supply of fiat currency in circulation. Gold's supply is practically limited to what's available in the earth's crust. However mere scarcity does not make a thing valuable. I simply wish to say digital scarcity is at the root of bitcoin, and (perhaps unfortunately) the rest of "crypto" broadly (the blockchain being the invention/discovery which enables digital scarcity). Value, savings, wealth, capital, etc... are all strange things for they exist only in the context of humans and civilization.
If you find this interesting, consider diving into bitcoin starting with your favorite entry point.
-adoption of new technology and network effects
-the history of finance, markets, and money in general (qualities of money-ness thru time)
-the politics of modern financial systems, the role of the federal reserve, etc
-distributed systems, consensus governance, anti-fragility of systems, etc
-the role of speculation, arbitrage, and trading in global capital markets
-boom and bust cycles in markets, Austrian-school economics vs Keynesian, etc
Many people have done their homework and concluded bitcoin is doomed, but a blip in financial history. I think it'll be as important as email in a decade or two. And I may change my mind of course. As with many things in this world, only time will tell!
