In June of 2012, I decided that I was going to pursue a playable set of TR King small crown chips. The minty Nevada chips were already wildly popular back then, and they were out of my price range. I decided to go a different direction instead. Since I’m from California, and TRK chips were made in California since the 1930’s, I decided to pursue a California set. While the TRK solid hot stamped sets are great, I already had a small set of those and I wanted something else. I wanted a set with an inlay and edgespots on the small crown mold. I didn’t need mint chips, and I didn’t need shaped inlays. I looked at what was available on eBay at the time and within recent sale history, and the Monterey Club stood out as the likely candidate. At the time, I lived about eight miles from the site of the former Monterey Club, so it seemed like a good choice. There were a few auctions running on eBay at the time, and I started bidding.
Ten years ago today, I received several auctions that I won, and posted a thread over on the blue wall. My Monterey Club chips officially became a set on 03 July 2012. This was the first and last time I received chips packed this way:
When I posed some of the racks that came with the chips, @dolomite128 correctly figured out that I’d received some TRKs.
Unfortunately, the remainder of the original thread was lost when CT disappeared, but here are some of the pics that show the beginnings of this set:
The rack of 90 $1s and a quarter shown at the bottom of the group shot was my first non-single purchase of Monterey Club chips. Many (possibly most) of the Monterey Club chips I acquired back then were from local sellers, including the seller of that partial rack. I met the seller after work to receive the chips, and we have stayed in touch since then. I purchased a handful of other chips from that seller over the years, including some of the hard to find $20s. I don’t think they are a member here, but I think they do read the forum now and then. If you see this, thank you for being a part of this chipping journey!
One of the more interesting purchases I made was for a lot of chips on eBay from another local seller. I met the seller in a parking lot to pick up the chips. That seller had obtained the chips in a storage unit auction. The mix of chips was random, and the chips were covered in a brown dust that I’m going to continue to believe was a disintegrated chocolate bar. There were pieces of a disintegrated candy bar wrapped in with the chips, so it might even be true. I haven’t cleaned my set (yet?), but I did wipe that particular lot of chips off one at a time.
Five years ago today, I posted my updates here on PCF. I’ve had a few milestones since then. I now have a second rack of quarters, the rack of 50c chips is all inlaid chips, I have a second rack of $2s, and I completed my first and second barrel of $20s. I’ve picked up some more $1s and $5s as well. When I bought those first eBay auctions, I had no idea that I would eventually build a 1700 chip limit set. As it became clear that the $20s would be hard to find, I purchased more $1s and $5s to help accommodate a larger bank. One thing led to another, and here we are. I’d still like to swap out those last 60 $1s for 60 $20s, and maybe in another 15 years I’ll get there. If I’m lucky enough to be hosting poker games 40 years from now, the $5s might even be the limit set chips!
I know you didn’t come here just for the wall of text, so here are the pics!
So am I done? Not even close. As you can likely see in the pictures, the conditions of the chips are all over the place. The used $5s are generally in better shape than the other denominations, which leads to different stack heights. Then there are the sharp chips that have even more noticeable stack height differences. Some chips are some of the most worn chips I’ve seen, some are spinners, some appear to be sun faded, and some look like they were cleaned too aggressively. This is going to be a lifelong effort to get consistent chips together for a NL set. Who knows, maybe someday I’ll even have a consistent limit set too. I’m pretty sure I’ll be hunting $20s for decades to come as well. If this is my grail set, then my grail quest continues.
As is often the case in this hobby, this was a group effort. I’d like to thank (in no particular order) @Starchy, @TheB00T, @John Conor, @Windwalker, @TRKingChips, @JWC and @leo822 for hooking me up with Monterey Club chips through various means. I’d like to give a special thanks to @AfterTheFact, who has been keeping an eye out for me for years and is responsible for finding most of my $20s. I would also like to thank @gmunny for being very kind when reminding me that he had, in fact, sold his Monterey Club chips to me years ago when I recently inquired if he still had them. Thank for reading this far. I hope you enjoyed!
Ten years ago today, I received several auctions that I won, and posted a thread over on the blue wall. My Monterey Club chips officially became a set on 03 July 2012. This was the first and last time I received chips packed this way:
When I posed some of the racks that came with the chips, @dolomite128 correctly figured out that I’d received some TRKs.
Unfortunately, the remainder of the original thread was lost when CT disappeared, but here are some of the pics that show the beginnings of this set:
The rack of 90 $1s and a quarter shown at the bottom of the group shot was my first non-single purchase of Monterey Club chips. Many (possibly most) of the Monterey Club chips I acquired back then were from local sellers, including the seller of that partial rack. I met the seller after work to receive the chips, and we have stayed in touch since then. I purchased a handful of other chips from that seller over the years, including some of the hard to find $20s. I don’t think they are a member here, but I think they do read the forum now and then. If you see this, thank you for being a part of this chipping journey!
One of the more interesting purchases I made was for a lot of chips on eBay from another local seller. I met the seller in a parking lot to pick up the chips. That seller had obtained the chips in a storage unit auction. The mix of chips was random, and the chips were covered in a brown dust that I’m going to continue to believe was a disintegrated chocolate bar. There were pieces of a disintegrated candy bar wrapped in with the chips, so it might even be true. I haven’t cleaned my set (yet?), but I did wipe that particular lot of chips off one at a time.
Five years ago today, I posted my updates here on PCF. I’ve had a few milestones since then. I now have a second rack of quarters, the rack of 50c chips is all inlaid chips, I have a second rack of $2s, and I completed my first and second barrel of $20s. I’ve picked up some more $1s and $5s as well. When I bought those first eBay auctions, I had no idea that I would eventually build a 1700 chip limit set. As it became clear that the $20s would be hard to find, I purchased more $1s and $5s to help accommodate a larger bank. One thing led to another, and here we are. I’d still like to swap out those last 60 $1s for 60 $20s, and maybe in another 15 years I’ll get there. If I’m lucky enough to be hosting poker games 40 years from now, the $5s might even be the limit set chips!
I know you didn’t come here just for the wall of text, so here are the pics!
So am I done? Not even close. As you can likely see in the pictures, the conditions of the chips are all over the place. The used $5s are generally in better shape than the other denominations, which leads to different stack heights. Then there are the sharp chips that have even more noticeable stack height differences. Some chips are some of the most worn chips I’ve seen, some are spinners, some appear to be sun faded, and some look like they were cleaned too aggressively. This is going to be a lifelong effort to get consistent chips together for a NL set. Who knows, maybe someday I’ll even have a consistent limit set too. I’m pretty sure I’ll be hunting $20s for decades to come as well. If this is my grail set, then my grail quest continues.
As is often the case in this hobby, this was a group effort. I’d like to thank (in no particular order) @Starchy, @TheB00T, @John Conor, @Windwalker, @TRKingChips, @JWC and @leo822 for hooking me up with Monterey Club chips through various means. I’d like to give a special thanks to @AfterTheFact, who has been keeping an eye out for me for years and is responsible for finding most of my $20s. I would also like to thank @gmunny for being very kind when reminding me that he had, in fact, sold his Monterey Club chips to me years ago when I recently inquired if he still had them. Thank for reading this far. I hope you enjoyed!
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