My first "real" chip purchase was about 1000 chips or so from the first Chip Room sale for the Grand Victoria chips. I bought used chips, because at the time, I thought the prices were ridiculous to spend on poker chips! After hand cleaning all 1000 chips, I could already tell that casino used chips were not for me.
A few months later, I got in contact with Jim, and talked to him about a tourney set of the Grand Victoria secondary chips. Chips from the sale, of course, were long gone. He sold me what he said was his "personal set", and it set me back something like $5000, which at the time, felt like a million dollars to me. I mean, I literally had heart palpitations about it, felt like I had to keep it a secret because if my family found out about it, they would all think I was stupid, and could not be trusted with money (they wouldn't be wrong). I couldn't sleep at night, tossing and turning over what I had just done. It was terrifying.
Fast forward a year or so later, and someone taught me the difference between
RHC and
THC, and introduced me to
TRK. I still stress out quite a bit over big chip purchases. But nothing like that first one. I didn't know at the time that for the most part, if you buy quality chips, they can be considered rentals. Some chips are long term rentals, while others are short term, "catch and release" (that was for
@superchromix, haha).
Miss those Grand Vic secondaries. The
RHC and ugly-ass inlay led to the short-term rental status. But the chips themselves were pretty awesome.