13g NexGen "Casino" Chips

[lwestatbus]

Well, my heart is broken. After wrestling with a chip selection that will support a 1 inch label I thought the relatively new 13g NexGen Casino chips would do the trick. (You can see some of my other posts for a history of my anguish.) I sent off for ten of each color and was very pleased with the colors and overall tone and appearance of the chips. But, there was big trouble in River City that I'm glad I checked before ordering a thousand of them.

I have wooden chip cases from two different manufacturers and decided to check on the fit of the 13g chips in the cases. Well, I could only get 24 chips per row! I went ahead and stacked 25 each of the 13g, 12g LV, 12g RPT, and 11.5g chips and the 13g Casino chips were a full chip thickness taller than the stack of any other chip. They would only fit 24/row in either manufacturer's wooden trays and also in the acrylic trays. This blows my valuation and chip quantity per player algorithms right out of the water.

A couple of other problems:

The circular ring of spots inside the recessed center isn't completely covered by a 1" label. Experimentation showed that if you don't get the label perfectly centered this ring highlights the problem.

The injection port 'teat' on the chip mold is inside the recessed center on one side and on about 2/3 of the chips is high enough to poke the label up so that it is visible. I found that getting a flat-edged X-acto knife can trim this off nicely, just as one more step.

I think it will be back to the RPT chips with a reduced color set. I really like the yellow and black chips and it looks as if I'll build the set around those two colors with some purples to either color up or serve as small blind denominations.

Oh, well. All of us afflicted by the madness will continue to struggle on.

Maybe I should just move to Vegas and can use the LV chips.

[PuckJunkieNY]

Maybe I should just move to Vegas and can use the LV chips.

I bet the LV chips will function just fine outside of Las Vegas , and the injection points are in a better location. I'm working on my label design for my 1k set...don't look forward to the actual physical act of applying them though.

[PocketRocket]

When people refer to the Nexgen chips, they're referring to the Nexgen Las Vegas (new and old versions) and RPT chips, not the 13 gr Casinos. These would be the Trademark (also 5star and pokerchipshopping) item numbers 10-8000, 10-8002, and 10-8100, respectively. You can apply labels to the Casino chips if you're willing to tolerate the variations that will occur with the ring on the edge of the recessed area that will show through, the inlay area itself doesn't have any noticable ridge.

Insofar as chips in cases or racks, they do vary in space. The wooden cases from China will not hold 25 of the Casino chips, nor will the earlier racks that were sold by Trademark. The chip racks that are now shipped from Trademark are 1/16" wider at 2 3/4" instead of the 2 11/16" that was previously shipped, and they will hold a stack of 20 Casino chips well. Also note that the Nexgen chips tend to get a little thicker with the application of labels, despite their recess, and will get very tight in a conventional 2 11/16" rack as well, at least with the new series (the original series seems to work fine in those racks.) Do take note of this if you're considering the green, black, purple, or yellow RPT chips.

If you're considering the RPT chips, order them in the 200 case set from 5star or Pokerchipshopping and you can get them at a net cost of about 13¢ per chip and you'll get a 200 chip case, recycled cards, and dice. The shipping is high, so order at least two sets to hit the $19.95 shipping maximum and then you can order other things that you may want (like racks or cards) and not worry about additional shipping charges. With shipping charges, you'll end up playing about 18¢ per chip on a 400 chip order, or 16¢ per chip on a 600 chip order. On a 1000 chip order (5 sets of 200), you're down to 15¢ per chip with the shipping.

Insofar as labeling is concerned, it's a tedious task. Take your time, allow about 2-3 hours per hundred chips if you're going to do it carefully aligning chips with the labels (either by a physical point like the cowboy hats or the edgespots.) It takes me about 2.5-3 hours per hundred, but I use vinyl labels which are a bear to get off the backing sheet (but much more forgiving if you make a mistake, and they don't tear like paper does.) Also note that if you're going to use a dual edgespot chip like the new RPTs, you might also want to note the directions of the edgespots as they vary depending on which side of the chip you're looking at, so you might want to sort them beforehand and inspect them after labeling as well (your eye can be easily fooled if you look at those chips long enough ).

When printing the labels, print about 5-10% extra so that you'll have them available for mistakes and a stash for later repairs. I do that as a matter of habit since I also coat them with about 3-4 coats of Krylon Crystal Clear (I use gloss and satin finishes, though others swear by matte) after printing. Having extra labels printed just eliminates the need for a second spray job later if I need more labels.

[PuckJunkieNY]

Very good info...Thanks.

[lwestatbus]

Just take me out and shoot me now!!

Thanks, Pocket, for your advice. Went to PockerChipShopping but they're out of stock on the yellow, what I'd planned on using as my low value chip. Added my name to the notification list--I just hope that the sale is still in effect when they come in. Nice info on the labeling process also.

PuckJunkie, saw your lable mock ups in another post. Pretty nice. I'm planning on a photo-based background but yours are very interesting.

[PocketRocket]

Yeah, I noticed that Trademark was out of yellow on the RPTs as well (on all of their sites). I was about to place another order for some more RPTs (can't beat the price on those 200 piece sets). Oddly enough, this is my first and only set of chips that has a metal insert. But with the labels they look halfway decent and would appeal more to the younger crowd than the hot stamped Paulsons that I've used for cash games since before the Carter administration. I would have actually prefered the LV Nexgens, but the price on the RPTs swayed me.

Thanks, Pocket, for your advice. Went to PockerChipShopping but they're out of stock on the yellow, what I'd planned on using as my low value chip. Added my name to the notification list--I just hope that the sale is still in effect when they come in. Nice info on the labeling process also.

[lwestatbus]

Maybe I should just move to Vegas and can use the LV chips.

I bet the LV chips will function just fine outside of Las Vegas

Actually, I've got ten of each color of the LV chips and when they're placed on a table here in Florida they all start sliding westward and calling out, "Wayne Newton, Wayne Newton," in squeaky little voices.

[lwestatbus]

Called PokerShopping this morning and they said it would be two months or so before the yellow chips are in stock but that they did expect to have the current price on the set of 200 RPT in the clear-topped case through that period.

[PuckJunkieNY]

Maybe I should just move to Vegas and can use the LV chips.

I bet the LV chips will function just fine outside of Las Vegas

Actually, I've got ten of each color of the LV chips and when they're placed on a table here in Florida they all start sliding westward and calling out, "Wayne Newton, Wayne Newton," in squeaky little voices.

Damn, how do I get mine to do that?