Help me pick a chip to harvest to use as Nooksack River Casino dollars (1 Viewer)

[bentax1978]

In just 6 short days left until I fly out to Vegas! While I'm there, among other things, I am planning to harvest a few racks of chips to be used for for a project to create some alternative $1 Nooksack River Casino chips so that the set can be used as a playable 1/2 set. I have (300) $5 chips and (200) $25 chips, plus (40) Empress $100 chips I plan to relabel into $100 chips for extra bank.

Since the $5 chips are in decent shape but still casino used, I don't mind a similar condition $1 chip, which makes this harvest job quite a bit easier. I won't have to try and cherry pick a couple chips per rack to get sharp edges or anything like that, just basically reject any real crappy ones and go from there.

Anyway, I have it narrowed down to three main candidates, but I'm always open to additional suggestions.

Option #1 are TH&C Monte Carlo $1 chips, which would require no harvesting as I already have two racks of these ready to go.

Option #2 are Venetian $1 chips, which I assume given the size of the casino and poker room shouldn't be too hard to harvest.

Option #3 are Arizona Charlie's Decatur chips. Not sure how easy or hard these would be to harvest. They have a poker room that spreads mostly limit poker (2/4, 3/6, 4/8), so I image it wouldn't be hard to buy racks of these from the cage. But I've never been there, so it's a bit of an unknown.


Original $1 (not an option, unfortunately)

Option #1 - Monte Carlo

Option #2 - Venetian

Option #3 - Arizona Charlie's

 

[manamongkids]

I like both besides Monte Carlo. Is condition a consideration?

 

[Ronoh]

Charlies. Don't forget to get your $5 steak & eggs at the Sourdough Cafe

Of course, the best option is to get all of the above and bring them home for full pron before deciding

 

[bentax1978]

I like both besides Monte Carlo. Is condition a consideration?

The Monte Carlo $1 chips I have are in really nice shape. The edges aren't sharp, but they're not too rounded either. I'd say they're in a little better shape than the Nooksack $5 chips, and in the middle of the range of the Nooksack $25 chips. But overall, they'd worth well in terms of condition.

No idea what the Venetian and Charlie's chips are like. I imagine based on how long they've been in circulation, they're probably on part with the $5 chips, which is fine.

I'm not worried about condition in terms of recess depth for this project as I am almost certain this project will involve full inlay replacement. I want the final product to looks as much like a real casino chip as possible.

 

[bentax1978]

Charlies. Don't forget to get your $5 steak & eggs at the Sourdough Cafe

Of course, the best option is to get all of the above and bring them home for full pron before deciding

I already mentioned the $5 steak and eggs to Mrs Bentax, which didn't help sway her to join me on my quest. That's ok, I'll make this a solo mission on Friday night when she's at the rugby tournament.

I'm not against grabbing a few racks from each place, assuming they're not hard to get. I was already planning on backing an extra bag filled with white chip boxes to safely take home my haul. I have other harvesting planned (for other sets), so it's important to be prepared

 

[TheBigTater]

I think the Venetian is the closest match to the originals and best fit of the 3.

 

[jbutler]

Originally pushed for Monte Carlo but seeing it in stacks pushed me toward either of the other options. Both look great imo.

 

[bentax1978]

Originally pushed for Monte Carlo but seeing it in stacks pushed me toward either of the other options. Both look great imo.

The Monte Carlos are a nice cheap, but they're not all that exciting in stacks (where as the other two denoms of the Nooksacks are pretty impressive in stacks). I also think either of the other two options would look better in stacks along side the rest of the set.

 

[dickzapper]

Venetian is a no-brainer for me. Looks like the exact same chip. I believe I've been in Trump casinos where the dollar chips were mixed from different production lines and the edge spots had slight variations like that. I could easily believe the Venetians were from the same casino, which it sounds like is the effect you're looking for. Plus the mustard/gold spots have some similarity with the off-white inlay. Easy choice.

 

[bentax1978]

Venetian is a no-brainer for me. Looks like the exact same chip. I believe I've been in Trump casinos where the dollar chips were mixed from different production lines and the edge spots had slight variations like that. I could easily believe the Venetians were from the same casino, which it sounds like is the effect you're looking for. Plus the mustard/gold spots have some similarity with the off-white inlay. Easy choice.

I posted the original chip most for reference, but my goal isn't necessarily to make them as close to the original as possible. It's fair to say that 99.9% of people (myself included until recently) would have no idea what I real Nooksack River Casino $1 chip looks like. So unlike trying to duplicate a more well known chip, I feel this project has a little more leeway in terms of picking a chip. In the end, I am mostly trying to find the chips that looks best with the other chips so that I have a cohesive looking set.

That said, I do think the Venetian would be a very good choice to compliment the existing chips, and as others have mentioned, it's probably a fairly easy chip to harvest.

 

[BGinGA]

Charlie's, and it isn't even close. Envision them all in stacks if you aren't yet convinced.

 

[bentax1978]

Charlie's, and it isn't even close. Envision them all in stacks if you aren't yet convinced.

I do like the Charie's chip better, both independently and in stacks. Just wasn't sure if it was the better choice for this set. My two thoughts were (1) the Venetian 418 spots are obviously a lot closer to the original $1 chip, whether or not that's important is debatable and (2) I didn't know if it would seem out of place to have a 4-color $1 chip, followed by a 3-color $5 and $25 chip. I have sets that that already (Highway 9 chips come to mind), and it's never bothered me, so perhaps I shouldn't consider that an "issue" here either.

 

[rowlin]

The width of the spots on the Charlie's chips is what makes me lean toward them, in terms of how they look with the others when stacked. That said, the "original color" argument for Monte Carlo and "original spot pattern" argument for Venetians are both fine by me too.

 

[Jeff]

Like the chips. The casino sounds a little like Nutsack, which would be an ideal place to spread a game of scrotum.

Sorry for the threadjack...carry on.

Yours in Jr. High humor.

Jeff

 

[bentax1978]

Like the chips. The casino sounds a little like Nutsack, which would be an ideal place to spread a game of scrotum.

Sorry for the threadjack...carry on.

Yours in Jr. High humor.

Jeff

On multiple occasions over the past couple weeks, I've asked my wife to check out my Nooksacks after I mocked up a new dollar chip.

When she comes over, sometime I would show her my mockups, sometimes I'd show her my Nooksack.

After 18 years together, it's her fault if she doesn't see that coming.

 

[bentax1978]

Preview of some of @Gear work, live from the Post.

 

[ChipEnvy]

That $100 is unreal!

 

[72o]

That $100 is unreal!

I was just going to say the same thing. I've seen these before, but I just noticed the subtle change in the different spot color sequence.

 

[bentax1978]

That $100 is unreal!

It looks even better in person. The inlay replacement looks fantastic.

Here's a slightly better close up.

 

[manamongkids]

I love those NUTSACKS!

 

[chipjoker]

Option #2 - Venetian...My vote

 

[manamongkids]

I love those NUTSACKS!

I mean NOOKSACKS!

 

[72o]

I love those NUTSACKS!

Good to know!

 

[softchewy]

For me it's a close tie between the Venetians and Charlies..
Just harvest both.. I or someone else would just buy the ones you don't use (y) :thumbsup:
That inlay replacement is excellent!!.. I think my Nooksack just tingled (sorry had to do it).

 

[bentax1978]

For me it's a close tie between the Venetians and Charlies..
Just harvest both.. I or someone else would just buy the ones you don't use (y) :thumbsup:
That inlay replacement is excellent!!.. I think my Nooksack just tingled (sorry had to do it).

I'm the end, I ended going went with the venetians because I was unable to harvest Nooksacks (I tried).

 

[Marius L]

Solid choice if you ask me. What is the hundo originally? The preview from gear looks great!

 

[bentax1978]

Solid choice if you ask me. What is the hundo originally? The preview from gear looks great!

They are/were cancelled Grand Casino - Hinkley chips.

 

[bentax1978]

So I still haven't committed to a $1 chips yet. I harvested a couple racks of used Venetian/Palazzo $1 chips this spring with the intention of using them as $1 chips. I like them, but I can't say I'm 100% sold. I've only removed the inlays on a few dozen, so I'm not pot committed, so to speak, on using them.

I grabbed a few Baltimore Horseshoe $1 chips this past weekend to try, just in case. I was skeptical about the spot color not working with the rest of the set, but now that I see them together, I don't think it's an issue. I'm not sure if I like these better, but there are some advantages to using these (the inlays are a lot easier to remove as compared to the Venetian chips, so it would have me about 6-8 hours in labor (which is not a completely insignificant factor, nor it shouldn't be the deciding factor).

Not that the white base color of the two chips aren't really different, despite what it looks like in the picture below.

 

[Gear]

I gotta say, I like the chunkier spot on the Horseshoe more than the 418 on the Venetian (for THIS set, anyway.)

 

[bentax1978]

I gotta say, I like the chunkier spot on the Horseshoe more than the 418 on the Venetian (for THIS set, anyway.)

That was my thought as well. The $5 is very "heavy", and I think the chunkier spot on the Horseshoe balances that off better than the 418 (original or Venetian).

Plus, the price and condition is right on the Horseshoe ($1 and used), and I'll be in the Baltimore area next week, so it would be an easy acquisition .