Comparing all the chips! WHEW!

[ashVID]

Several freinds and I who have had a home game for about 2 years decided we should step up and ge some nicer chips. We are all frugal so we decided to investigate every option. We are currently using a set of composite (more like a filled chip I believe) chips that are gold hot stampled with denomionations. (we play winner takes all tourny style so that doesnt matter). The chips are not weighted and about 9 grams, standard red, white, green and black colors, with 6 white edge spots.

The first thing we noticed was that in the last 2 years the price has SKYROCKETED! YIKES! The set I bought for $75 shipped is going for more like $250. The Paulson chips are now $1-$2 EACH where they were more like $25 per 100 last time I looked. Also, the market seems flooded with cheap falsely heavy and wrongly advertised chips.

We all pooled our samples together and the results were surprising. We all agree that the 5stardeal chips which seem really popular, are just not for us. They feel like playing with silver dollars, they would be a step down in our opinions. Several of the pre-made sets were decent like the fan of cards, James Bond and those available from Dice702. The favorite of those was easliy the James Bond for the nicer edge spots. They are definitely no Paulson chip but have that nice Casino feel. They also look more legit, not like a sticker baked on ceramic. The Chipco chips (like Crystal Oyster Casino which are being marked up huge on eBay) are just OK... they feel good, stack well and shuffle well but the graphics and edge spots have a "soft" focus. The best looking of the Chipco home chips was the "Casino" style.

We were all universally unimpressed with most the places that make custom chips. Pokerchips.com just felt the same as our current lower end set, they also seemed very light and were mixed with brass (or some other metal) filings to add weight, that makes the edges sparkle. We didnt like them at all. Homepokerchips and TheChipMart were both OK, but a step DOWN from Chipco at the same price. Nevada Jacks has an interesting design but are really overpriced.

We were pretty bummed then one of my friends said his wife had just got him a set of chips from Target of all places and he was going to return them so he hadnt opened them. He brought them over and guess what... out of all those chips almost everyone liked them as much or MORE than their expensive counterparts! They are 9 grams and are some sort of composite, maybe there is some plastic in there, I dunno but they feel BETTER than many of the other chips. Best of all they are $39 for 240 chips, 2 decks of cards and a caddy! We would have to buy 3 sets to make s full one (the 4 colors are evenly split) but even then we would be under $150. We are a little torn because we DO like the James Bond ones better but they are 3 times as much and hard to find... If the Target chips had edge spots, they would prolly be the winner.... pretty crazy!

Anyone know who makes those Target chips? Not the architect, the actual chip maker.... here is a lonk to a similar set on eBay

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... tegory=899


ash =o)

[Drew]

I'm in a similar situation as you.

Some of the "James Bond" chips are actually made by the people who used to own Paulson. (the ones from 5stardeal are, at least).

So they are very much like Paulson.


I'm working on making my own custom chips to the same specification as the Paulson chips and while I haven't done too much, I'm pretty determined to find out how to make them.

[ashVID]

You are correct Drew but we did get a couple Paulson chips from eBay and the old ones (top hate & cane) are better than the newer ones. More than anything we have realized the chips we have are better than we thought! We may just wait until we can get a better deal on the Paulson-type chips...


ash =o)

[Silencer]

Ironically enough I agree that those chips from Target are actually really nice feeling. I had talked about chips before Christmas and my step mom bought that set for me, not knowing that I had ordered a 1,000 chip set from 5stardeal.com. I ended up giving their set back to them so they had something to play with (since I want them to learn) and when we finally broke them out I REALLY liked them. They were NOT what I was expecting (which was some cheapo plastic deal) they seemed really nice.

I definitely think they have a better texture to them than the 5stardeal chips I got. If they had edge spots they would be awsome chips in my opinion (I really like the edge spots for counting stacks). I do like the weight of the 5stardeal chips that I have though, and they look nicer I think, they just don't have as nice a texture/feel to them.

[UnluckyKyle]

Someone mentioned the chips from target... if anyone was interested in buying them go here:

http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/ref=1041626_bxgy_cc_img_a/601-2070794-9811302?asin=B00008WMIB