I love my Starbursts for family game night, I like my Milanos for regular poker nights, but I thought it would be great to add a nice denominated Paulson set to the chip closet. I could rotate it in for special occasions or for players who appreciate some better-feeling chips. I was looking for something reasonably priced - a buck a chip or so - but also something that would be an upgrade over our regular china clays.
And so I picked up this great little set of FunNites from @Mathieu. It’s almost perfect for our small-stakes game by using the 25’s as quarters. The FunNites hit all my happy buttons: classic Paulson THC, hot stamps, denominated, usually available in good condition, reasonable priced. Plus look, pink snappers! (not that I really need them but hey, pink!) The only thing missing was a few more 1’s so I can do full barrels of quarters and 1’s for a $25 buy-in. And maybe a few more red 5’s to even out the racks would be great. That shouldn’t be too hard to find.
After some scouring of the classifieds I came across a post where @Tim Kutscher offered some FunNites to someone looking for THC solids. Score! He had the 80 whites and 50 reds I needed. That would work great! But what’s that? You have a few extras available? Well, since I’m paying to ship those chips across the ocean, you might as well round up those reds to a full rack… you know… just in case. Plus I can slide them over and use them as nickels for super micro stakes with the family if needed. Totally justifiable. A great addition to the set. I’d call that done.
But you know what would be awesome? Having a barrel of special $20’s to color up the big stacks later in the night. Well, I found that there aren’t too many hot stamped, THC $20 chip options out there. Good thing I really liked those Desert Oasis 20’s! After posting a Wanted ad in the classifieds @Tim Kutscher replied and said he had a small stack of them he could include in the box of extra 1’s and 5’s he was about to send. All it would take is a little extra PayPal transaction. Sweet! Looking good! Nice playable set now complete.
I should have stopped here. But of course I didn’t.
Because @BiGGyT also replied to that $20 Hot Stamps Wanted post. He had a rack of used Desert Oasis $20 that he was willing to part with *and* he had a rack of minty red FunNite 5’s that were looking for a new home. How could I turn down minty chips? Well obviously I couldn’t. A little rubbie-dubby-toothbrush-scrubby and those casino-used 20’s are now clean and ready for play.
That should do it, right? This set now has more chips than I was planning on buying and there’s no way I need that many $20’s. It’s time to start thinking about releasing a few barrels of the extras back into the wild. ‘Buy all the chips and figure it out later’ seemed like a completely defendable approach at the time but now I should probably switch from being a chip buyer to a chip seller.
Well, that approach would have been completely reasonable until I decided that it would be cool to add a barrel of hundos. Woops.
I mean seriously… I have a whole rack+ of 20’s – what the hell kind of night would we be having to need a $100 chip? But lots of advice says that your game will grow bigger. And just a barrel of them wouldn’t be too expensive, would it? And hey look! Apache has an extra barrel of black 100’s for sale from that big Caribbean Poker Classic set. Hot stamp? Solid? THC? Check, check and check! Perfect addition… for retail prices, but still it’s only a barrel so it doesn’t hurt the chip account that much. Sold! Another great addition! Set complete.
(But does it bother you that the 20’s are spotted but then the 100’s are solid? Yah, me too.)
And now this is where we leave the realm of the reasonable and enter a new space where the normal rules of logic no longer apply.
Did any of you have an inflection point? Is there a chip that you can look back to and say, “This is where my chippie fascination devolved into a chippie obsession”? Can you say, “This is where I lost control.”? Well, for me, this is that chip: The Sundance West $100.
I cajoled @colter ripton until he relented and sold me his stack of them. He named his price and I paid the man his money. It was not cheap, but I didn’t care. I wanted them, they were available, I was able to justify to myself that they were fairly priced, and so I bought them. It was several multiples over what I *ever* thought I would pay for a poker chip. But I gladly sent the PayPal. So pretty, so pricy, but after a serious dent to the bank account, they are now so mine. Thank you @colter ripton for passing these pretty chips on to me. I have zero regrets.
Of course you experienced chippers know where this is going by now. The seal has been broken - the flood gates are open – Elvis has left the building - pick your metaphor. What started out as a very reasonable FunNite set has now evolved into a much pricier mixed casino hot stamp set. Some more digging through old For Sale threads lead me to @MatB who had a cache of incredibly pretty cotton candy Tropicana 3rd issue 5’s and minty sky blue Claim Stake 1’s. To paraphrase James Earl Jones from Field of Dreams, “They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and chips they lack.” Yah, it was kind of like that.
Obviously those green FunNite 25's don’t fit in this new mixed casino set any more, so I was back to searching through old classifieds postings for some hot stamped quarters. Casino quarters in good condition a bit scarce but at this point both logic and budget were blown. There were a few colors that I think would have worked with the set: whites, purples, something peach would have looked nice too. In the end, @pltrgyst was kind enough to give me a slight price break on two racks of Virgin River off-whites from his chip vault that work great and now the mixed casino hot stamp set is complete.
All the philosophy books say you can’t buy happiness, but you know what… I kinda did here. At least for a while. I can’t express how happy I am with how the set has evolved and how giddy I am when I pull out these chips. Through the kindness of several PCF members, through the great information and pron posted in threads and through the punishment of my bank account, I now have my own, unique mixed casino cash set. Thank you to everyone who has shared their wisdom and opinion on this forum and especially to the members who have parted with their pretty little chippies and sent them my way.
I added a couple of Stardust casino decks from Spinnetti’s (just ‘cause) and the now case is ready for play. Sure, it would be nice to swap the used Desert Oasis 20’s for mintier versions and I would love to see how some pink quarters would fit with the set (paging Railroad Pass), but for now, my awesome, mixed casino, hot stamped, Paulson THC, forever-mine poker chip set is done. Well, forever-mine until I need to raise funds and clear out space for some CPC customs. I imagine you know where this is going…
Anyhoo… if you haven’t learned this lesson already, learn it from me. This poker chip thing is not an inexpensive obsession. Something as innocent as putting together a reasonable cash set can quickly devolve into an expensive quest for pretty and pricey chips. Beyond china clays there be dragons waiting to devour your dollars. Proceed with caution.
And so I picked up this great little set of FunNites from @Mathieu. It’s almost perfect for our small-stakes game by using the 25’s as quarters. The FunNites hit all my happy buttons: classic Paulson THC, hot stamps, denominated, usually available in good condition, reasonable priced. Plus look, pink snappers! (not that I really need them but hey, pink!) The only thing missing was a few more 1’s so I can do full barrels of quarters and 1’s for a $25 buy-in. And maybe a few more red 5’s to even out the racks would be great. That shouldn’t be too hard to find.
After some scouring of the classifieds I came across a post where @Tim Kutscher offered some FunNites to someone looking for THC solids. Score! He had the 80 whites and 50 reds I needed. That would work great! But what’s that? You have a few extras available? Well, since I’m paying to ship those chips across the ocean, you might as well round up those reds to a full rack… you know… just in case. Plus I can slide them over and use them as nickels for super micro stakes with the family if needed. Totally justifiable. A great addition to the set. I’d call that done.
But you know what would be awesome? Having a barrel of special $20’s to color up the big stacks later in the night. Well, I found that there aren’t too many hot stamped, THC $20 chip options out there. Good thing I really liked those Desert Oasis 20’s! After posting a Wanted ad in the classifieds @Tim Kutscher replied and said he had a small stack of them he could include in the box of extra 1’s and 5’s he was about to send. All it would take is a little extra PayPal transaction. Sweet! Looking good! Nice playable set now complete.
I should have stopped here. But of course I didn’t.
Because @BiGGyT also replied to that $20 Hot Stamps Wanted post. He had a rack of used Desert Oasis $20 that he was willing to part with *and* he had a rack of minty red FunNite 5’s that were looking for a new home. How could I turn down minty chips? Well obviously I couldn’t. A little rubbie-dubby-toothbrush-scrubby and those casino-used 20’s are now clean and ready for play.
That should do it, right? This set now has more chips than I was planning on buying and there’s no way I need that many $20’s. It’s time to start thinking about releasing a few barrels of the extras back into the wild. ‘Buy all the chips and figure it out later’ seemed like a completely defendable approach at the time but now I should probably switch from being a chip buyer to a chip seller.
Well, that approach would have been completely reasonable until I decided that it would be cool to add a barrel of hundos. Woops.
I mean seriously… I have a whole rack+ of 20’s – what the hell kind of night would we be having to need a $100 chip? But lots of advice says that your game will grow bigger. And just a barrel of them wouldn’t be too expensive, would it? And hey look! Apache has an extra barrel of black 100’s for sale from that big Caribbean Poker Classic set. Hot stamp? Solid? THC? Check, check and check! Perfect addition… for retail prices, but still it’s only a barrel so it doesn’t hurt the chip account that much. Sold! Another great addition! Set complete.
(But does it bother you that the 20’s are spotted but then the 100’s are solid? Yah, me too.)
And now this is where we leave the realm of the reasonable and enter a new space where the normal rules of logic no longer apply.
Did any of you have an inflection point? Is there a chip that you can look back to and say, “This is where my chippie fascination devolved into a chippie obsession”? Can you say, “This is where I lost control.”? Well, for me, this is that chip: The Sundance West $100.
I cajoled @colter ripton until he relented and sold me his stack of them. He named his price and I paid the man his money. It was not cheap, but I didn’t care. I wanted them, they were available, I was able to justify to myself that they were fairly priced, and so I bought them. It was several multiples over what I *ever* thought I would pay for a poker chip. But I gladly sent the PayPal. So pretty, so pricy, but after a serious dent to the bank account, they are now so mine. Thank you @colter ripton for passing these pretty chips on to me. I have zero regrets.
Of course you experienced chippers know where this is going by now. The seal has been broken - the flood gates are open – Elvis has left the building - pick your metaphor. What started out as a very reasonable FunNite set has now evolved into a much pricier mixed casino hot stamp set. Some more digging through old For Sale threads lead me to @MatB who had a cache of incredibly pretty cotton candy Tropicana 3rd issue 5’s and minty sky blue Claim Stake 1’s. To paraphrase James Earl Jones from Field of Dreams, “They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and chips they lack.” Yah, it was kind of like that.
Obviously those green FunNite 25's don’t fit in this new mixed casino set any more, so I was back to searching through old classifieds postings for some hot stamped quarters. Casino quarters in good condition a bit scarce but at this point both logic and budget were blown. There were a few colors that I think would have worked with the set: whites, purples, something peach would have looked nice too. In the end, @pltrgyst was kind enough to give me a slight price break on two racks of Virgin River off-whites from his chip vault that work great and now the mixed casino hot stamp set is complete.
All the philosophy books say you can’t buy happiness, but you know what… I kinda did here. At least for a while. I can’t express how happy I am with how the set has evolved and how giddy I am when I pull out these chips. Through the kindness of several PCF members, through the great information and pron posted in threads and through the punishment of my bank account, I now have my own, unique mixed casino cash set. Thank you to everyone who has shared their wisdom and opinion on this forum and especially to the members who have parted with their pretty little chippies and sent them my way.
I added a couple of Stardust casino decks from Spinnetti’s (just ‘cause) and the now case is ready for play. Sure, it would be nice to swap the used Desert Oasis 20’s for mintier versions and I would love to see how some pink quarters would fit with the set (paging Railroad Pass), but for now, my awesome, mixed casino, hot stamped, Paulson THC, forever-mine poker chip set is done. Well, forever-mine until I need to raise funds and clear out space for some CPC customs. I imagine you know where this is going…
Anyhoo… if you haven’t learned this lesson already, learn it from me. This poker chip thing is not an inexpensive obsession. Something as innocent as putting together a reasonable cash set can quickly devolve into an expensive quest for pretty and pricey chips. Beyond china clays there be dragons waiting to devour your dollars. Proceed with caution.
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