(no subject)

[reldnahkram]

I've been kicking around the idea of getting a small set of poker chips to carry around with a bag full of board games. I was leaning towards getting some of these, but in looking for reviews, I came across the dedicated chipaholics at Chiptalk.net and ended up foundering in the seas of custom poker chips.

I suspect many of you will recognize the inspiration for the designs. Components can be pretty easily mixed and matched together, colors changed, etc. I'd greatly appreciate feedback, comments, suggestions, etc.

Comments

[sildra.livejournal.com]

Wow. My custom poker chips are just monogrammed.

I think using Roman numerals would make everything a lot harder, and people would be more prone to making dumb mistakes. In fact, it took me a moment to figure out that that's what those were--at first I was trying to spell stuff with them. ("icy? no, that's a v not a y...")

[reldnahkram.livejournal.com]

I am inclined to agree about the roman numerals. I was initially kicking them around because I liked the simplicity - one character is all that's needed. And the denominations are more of a reminder than anything else - I currently have unmarked chips and they work fine, you quickly get used to what's worth what.

[sildra.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my custom ones are unmarked. But at least they're the standard blue, red, white, yellow, black. (They're monogrammed with an R, which my family has always assumed was for my great-grandfather Harry Raffel.)

[ccommack]

I would encourage sticking to the traditional color-denomination pairings, where applicable: 5 = Red, 25 = Green, 100 = Black, 500 = Purple. Similarly, I wouldn't use white with any denomination other than 1, but using another color for 1 ought to be fine.

I feel like the Arabic-numeral denominations are easier to work with; you want to keep the ratio of denomination:next-higher-denomination at 4 or 5 wherever possible (not going up to 1000 helps here).

I think the third set (meeple outline on black, Arabic numerals) is sufficiently striking that if you don't use the design I may ask to steal it. I think the key tweaks are to stick to sans-serif fonts for the digits, use variable colors for the numbers, and compare the look of number-under-meeple to the number-in-centered-meeple used in the second set.

One last point: a frequently overlooked detail in any chipset is the edge-on profile. Do these come with any edge markings, or will you have to paint those on? (Only one casino I've ever been to more than once is idiotic enough to use chips with solid edges. Hint: it's in AC, it can ruin anything it touches, and it's the Borgata.)

[reldnahkram.livejournal.com]

I assume you're referring to these (http://www.callzia.com/dghome/acchips/BOR-Tournament.htm) Borgata chips?

Regarding the edge spots or lack thereof, the solids shown are on sale until the end of the month at 30 cents each labeled - this is pretty good for china clays.

[reldnahkram.livejournal.com]

Interesting, I wasn't anywhere near done that reply.

I quite like the look of chips without edge spots. But maybe they're best stamped, and I have no real interest in spending the $100 to get a meeple stamp made for 200 or so chips. If these (http://www.apachepokerchips.com/grandcardroom.html) had 1s and 5s and cost was not a factor, I'd be all over 'em (more pics here (http://www.chiptalk.net/forum/poker-chip-gallery/72304-paulson-grand-cardroom-post-your-pron-here.html)).

Other inspirations behind design three are 1 (http://www.chiptalk.net/forum/custom-chip-gallery/27143-custom-clay-poker-chip-gallery-no-replies-please-7.html#post711578) 2 (http://www.chiptalk.net/forum/custom-chip-gallery/27143-custom-clay-poker-chip-gallery-no-replies-please-7.html#post727409") 3 (http://www.chiptalk.net/forum/custom-chip-gallery/27143-custom-clay-poker-chip-gallery-no-replies-please-8.html#post729689) 4 (http://www.chiptalk.net/forum/custom-chip-gallery/27143-custom-clay-poker-chip-gallery-no-replies-please-8.html#post732870) 5 (http://www.chiptalk.net/forum/custom-chip-gallery/27143-custom-clay-poker-chip-gallery-no-replies-please-8.html#post761356). The whole thread has a lot of drop-dead gorgeous chips, but I'm not really interested in $1+ ASM customs.

I wouldn't mind splitting an order with someone, as I'm looking for a relatively small set and embiggening the order would probably make some things easier. I'll shoot you an e-mail.

[irilyth]

On behalf of the naive in the crowd, I'll ask: Why does it matter if they have edge markings?

[reldnahkram.livejournal.com]

They help for counting the number of chips in a stack. Compare the ease of counting n chips in the solid v. spotted in this pic (http://www.chiptalk.net/forum/attachments/custom-chip-gallery/23280d1298917550-pgi-custom-labeled-solids-spots-yay-dsc00183.jpg).

That said, I think it's much more important for poker, where it's far more critical to quickly identify how many chips someone just pushed into the pot. For board gaming, I think it's much more socially acceptable to ask "how much money do you have." It's also less likely to come up. The chips are more for keeping track of how much you have and for your own personal transactions than for matching someone else's.

[irilyth]

I get an error saying that I'm not logged in, when I click on that link. But I'll take your word for it, and that makes some sense.

[reldnahkram.livejournal.com]

Try these (http://www.pokerice.com/wp-content/uploads/poker-chips.jpg) and these (http://blog.pokertickets.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/clay-poker-chips-splash.jpg).

[complexated.livejournal.com]

I love the ones with the black background, colored meeple outlines, and arabic numerals. I like their simplicity and elegance.

[tirerim.livejournal.com]

Me too.

[leepinleemur.livejournal.com]

Nice idea.
There's also the ones here:
http://www.meeplesource.com/products.php?cat=2

But they also don't generally seem to follow the standard denominations/colors for some reason.

I guess the advantage to no/non-numeric designation is if they ever get used for anything else, it would be less confusing, but I'm not sure how often that happens.

[reldnahkram.livejournal.com]

The only things I can think of for using chips where the numbers aren't necessary are for blocking off the closed areas of a Power Grid map and for throwing them in a bag for use in a home-brew version of The Resistance. And in both cases, having the numbers doesn't get in the way.