Who Made These Horse/Jockey? (1 Viewer)

BearMetal

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A friend of mine unearthed a giant Tupperware of ancient poker chips. He believes they must date back to the '50s or even earlier. It was easy enough to find the horse and jockey mold online, with references to the late 50s. But there's no actual mention of manufacturer.

Then there are the plain mold chips. They don't have that classic swirl that bakelite chips have. They also don't sound like bakelite chips that I've heard... Any vintage experts know more info about these?

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Aren't these the compressed paper ones? I think they're WAY older than 1950s.
Are you referring to the plain mold ones? Because I don't think the ones that are horse / jockey are paper. Compressed paper??? That's something I've never heard of before!
 
Are you referring to the plain mold ones? Because I don't think the ones that are horse / jockey are paper. Compressed paper??? That's something I've never heard of before!
Yup. I think those are older paper chips. I've had a few, but they are neat chips.
 
Are you referring to the plain mold ones? Because I don't think the ones that are horse / jockey are paper. Compressed paper??? That's something I've never heard of before!
Anything chip related that says “noiseless” is most likely pressed paper
 
I have a bunch of the plain ones. I think they are some kind of compressed "clay" chip. If your snap one in half, it will look like the broken edge of a flower pot with (not so) fine grains - hard to imagine it was injection molded.

I always thought the Jockeys were injection molded plastic. I've never owned any, much less snapped one in half. But they seem to fall into the category of the "Dogs Playing Poker", Airplane, Golfer, Sailing Ship, etc, etc.
 
I have a bunch of the plain ones. I think they are some kind of compressed "clay" chip. If your snap one in half, it will look like the broken edge of a flower pot with (not so) fine grains - hard to imagine it was injection molded.

I always thought the Jockeys were injection molded plastic. I've never owned any, much less snapped one in half. But they seem to fall into the category of the "Dogs Playing Poker", Airplane, Golfer, Sailing Ship, etc, etc.
My searches have brought me to discover that the horse / jockey mold were made by Lowe. However, all of the listings and descriptions mentioned that they are clay, which I didn't think Lowe produced.
 
The plain mold ones you’ve shown here don’t look like paper to me. Should be pretty easy to tell - if they clink, clack, or clatter then they aren’t paper, aka “noiseless” as paper chips were marketed.

My bet is they are either Bakelite or “clay composition”, which is a composite of clay plus either shellac or celluloid. There are tests you can do to identify Bakelite.

The jockeys, as well as the others that @mtl mile end mentions, are more generally called “embossed” chips, as opposed to engraved, inlaid, or chips with edge molds like the more modern clays we’re used to. I think they’re compression molded rather than injection molded simply because of the timeframe; injection molding existed at the time but I don’t think it was well developed or widespread yet. They’re probably made of clay composition as well, although they could be Bakelite.

The swirly Bakelite chips are actually Catalin although the terminology is flexible and inconsistent. Bakelite is molded, Catalin is cast and then machined; I wrote about the difference here: https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/any-help-identifying-these.71596/#post-1449294

Embossed chips like the jockeys go way back to the early 20th century. I don’t know when they went out of style, but you can see them in advertisements from the twenties at least. Not saying these in particular are that old, but they could have been from a pretty wide range of time periods.
 
The plain mold ones you’ve shown here don’t look like paper to me. Should be pretty easy to tell - if they clink, clack, or clatter then they aren’t paper, aka “noiseless” as paper chips were marketed.

My bet is they are either Bakelite or “clay composition”, which is a composite of clay plus either shellac or celluloid. There are tests you can do to identify Bakelite.

The jockeys, as well as the others that @mtl mile end mentions, are more generally called “embossed” chips, as opposed to engraved, inlaid, or chips with edge molds like the more modern clays we’re used to. I think they’re compression molded rather than injection molded simply because of the timeframe; injection molding existed at the time but I don’t think it was well developed or widespread yet. They’re probably made of clay composition as well, although they could be Bakelite.

The swirly Bakelite chips are actually Catalin although the terminology is flexible and inconsistent. Bakelite is molded, Catalin is cast and then machined; I wrote about the difference here: https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/any-help-identifying-these.71596/#post-1449294

Embossed chips like the jockeys go way back to the early 20th century. I don’t know when they went out of style, but you can see them in advertisements from the twenties at least. Not saying these in particular are that old, but they could have been from a pretty wide range of time periods.
I will have to ask him what the blank molds sound like (if they have a "tink" to them).

I thought that if either chips were Bakelite, that they would have the classic swirl to them. They are definitely compression molded rather than injected since there's no injection mark on them.

As for the jockeys, it seems like Lowe produced them in the 1940s through 1950s. Could they be even older than that? I still have had no luck trying to find a company who produced the blanks. Could it also be Lowe?
 
Good questions! I’m on vacation, otherwise I’d dig through Seymour and see what turns up in the pages and pages of advertisements he reprinted in his book.
 

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