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Cards mold ceramic chip comparisons (3 Viewers)

BillyBluff said:
Not wanting to add fuel to the fire, but it looks like Tina's co have changed their blanks. Tina mentioned that they had "made some slight improvements" as a direct result of the "gas marks". To me, they look more akin to Anita's blanks o_O. Here an example - the top chip one was ordered last year and the bottom one is one I received today:

Edit: for clarification - the chip on the top of the pile (lower in the picture) is the older one and the chip on the bottom of the pile is the newer one!

View attachment 688856

In addition, the edges look/feel a little more rounded, but that might just be me. If anyone wants more shoddy pictures, then let me know!

Thanks,
Iain
Click to expand...
Shiny cards, rounded edges, seems like their new blanks become closer to the SF ones.

Few questions :
Do the rounded ones stand on edge ? Is the edge of the rounded ones matte or glossy ? Do you have spinners with the rounded edge ones ?
 
Kid_Eastwood said:
Shiny cards, rounded edges, seems like their new blanks become closer to the SF ones.

Few questions :
Do the rounded ones stand on edge ? Is the edge of the rounded ones matte or glossy ? Do you have spinners with the rounded edge ones ?
Click to expand...
  1. Yes, they stand on edge
  2. The edge is matte
  3. Yes, there are still a few spinners
This photo shows the edge difference (on the left are the old chips and on the right are the new chips). There appears to be more space showing between the chips, i.e. the edges are slightly rounder than the old chips.

TinaBlanks4.jpg
 
This is worrisome. Many of us are ordering add-ons to our existing sets. The difference in the cards I probably wouldn't notice, but the rounder edges would probably tilt me. On the bright side, the color match looks very good!
 
So definitely different blanks than the SF ones. Very interesting and useful information @BillyBluff ! Thanks for sharing it.
 
So I know that Tina mentioned that their machine was "busy" and they wanted to use a new one for one of the group buys OR we could wait 40 days until the old machine was available. We decided to wait as we wanted the chips to match the old ones that other members ordered already.

But Tina did not mention a different card mold.

With that said, the "new" chips don't look as bad as the "older" chips...but I think they don't look like they "pop" as much...the colors are not as vibrate.

So I still think Tina and Anita work for the same company and they are just order our chips that are using a different machine and different blanks.
 
Most likely scenario is that the two machines are located in two different companies' factories -- neither of which directly employs Tina (or Anita), who works for a distribution company that places orders through multiple factories based on product and availability.
 
BillyBluff said:
  1. Yes, they stand on edge
  2. The edge is matte
  3. Yes, there are still a few spinners
This photo shows the edge difference (on the left are the old chips and on the right are the new chips). There appears to be more space showing between the chips, i.e. the edges are slightly rounder than the old chips.

View attachment 688939
Click to expand...

If both versions are mixed together and stacked up, are there any issues? What about in a splash pot? In a rack?

In other words, do you foresee any issues when both versions are in play together?
 
Jake14mw said:
This is worrisome. Many of us are ordering add-ons to our existing sets. The difference in the cards I probably wouldn't notice, but the rounder edges would probably tilt me. On the bright side, the color match looks very good!
Click to expand...
Glad I ordered a big batch all at once. OCD would have me replace the couple of 1's that broke in shipping if I could but with 598 of them, I am in no rush. Given that we ordered from a Chinese manufacturer I assumed it would be a one shot deal with any add-on's being different denoms "if" similar chips were still avail. So far those concerns seem minor especially if you ordered recent Anita's Chips given that seems to be on the new mold. For those making future orders i'd recommend ordering all the chips you may ever want in your set at once because we never know when the information we know so far will change or new molds/versions will used when the now current supply runs out. For the price ordering 50-100% more chips than you may use is something to consider. For the price they are amazing chips in spite of all the nitty picky criticisms we are doing of these chips.

So Far (this is what I know or believe)
- there seems to be a new mold/chip blank with a ever so slightly different cards imprint and slightly tapered edge (TINA & ANITA)
-The new chips have more consistent colour across the chips without the spotting seen on early TINA chips....both suppliers
- The colours if similar may be used across the chips so be aware when selecting colours as red's, blues, pinks etc... may have colour wheel adjustments on the supplier end that simplifies their dye selection....can be seen in my earlier post where the colours on my chips can be seen to be the same throughout the set...so be aware for dirty stack concerns etc...
- Both Anita and Tina are likely agents/sales reps/contractor/subcontractors or something of the type that act as agent contracting work to factories in "china" someplace. The are as far as we know different persons or agencies.
-time of productions.... Tina seems to be slower than Anita in my exp and observations reading recent group buy posts. My recent group buy went from design submission to samples in 24-72hrs and full order submitted to delivery in the USA in about 2 months the majority of that in transportation/shipping. The turnaround may vary though depending on other orders competing with ours.
 
Dodger said:
If both versions are mixed together and stacked up, are there any issues? What about in a splash pot? In a rack?

In other words, do you foresee any issues when both versions are in play together?
Click to expand...
No, I don't foresee any issues. The colours are very close and you'd have to study the chips very, very closely to know that the mould is slightly "improved". I can almost guarantee that 99.9% of "normal" players wouldn't even notice (unless they're a weirdo like the rest of us on PCF!). The middle barrel is the new mould where the edges are just ever-so-slightly more rounded.

TinaBlanks5.jpg

TinaBlanks6.jpg
 
philhut said:
The new chips have more consistent colour across the chips without the spotting seen on early TINA chips....both suppliers
Click to expand...
Tina did mention that the changes to the blanks are a direct result of the "gas marks" on the old ones. Whether the Tina and Anita blanks are the exactly the same, I guess we'll never know.
 
BGinGA said:
Most likely scenario is that the two machines are located in two different companies' factories -- neither of which directly employs Tina (or Anita), who works for a distribution company that places orders through multiple factories based on product and availability.
Click to expand...
When I was looking into some print-on-demand services for custom playing cards and playing mats (board game stuff), I read a post explaining that all of the POD services you may have heard of do not in fact do any printing themselves. They subcontract the print jobs out to various print shops based on the workload and availability. The POD firm manages the customer interaction, ordering process, scheduling, and job distribution, but the actual production is done by whoever is next in line in their work order queue. So as a result you might get widely differing print quality due to the different printers using different equipment, supplies, staff, and workmanship standards.

I can't vouch for how accurate this is, but it has the ring of truth to it.

That said, some POD firms have a good reputation for consistently delivering high quality product, so even if they don't do their own printing in-house they at least exercise good management over the print shops they send jobs to.

I imagine the cheap poker chip business is much the same.
 
Hello, I keep reading about Tina's chips. Where can we buy these from?
 
I didn't want to start a brand new thread since this thread contains lots of great cards mold information. However, I have a concern about them and was curious what others have noticed...

I was graciously gifted a New China Club sample set. While shuffling (fondling) them, I noticed that the $5 felt larger. Broke out the calipers. Most were between 39.06mm and 39.11mm - totally acceptable. However, the $1 was 39.45mm and the $5 was 39.49mm ! Those are HUGE differences. Anyone else notice this variance on cards molds? Is it only New China Club?
 
BearMetal said:
I didn't want to start a brand new thread since this thread contains lots of great cards mold information. However, I have a concern about them and was curious what others have noticed...

I was graciously gifted a New China Club sample set. While shuffling (fondling) them, I noticed that the $5 felt larger. Broke out the calipers. Most were between 39.06mm and 39.11mm - totally acceptable. However, the $1 was 39.45mm and the $5 was 39.49mm ! Those are HUGE differences. Anyone else notice this variance on cards molds? Is it only New China Club?
Click to expand...

Only after the discussion that kicked off from the delivery of my current GB did I go to compare to the old and the new Casa Mangos from Sean’s very first delivery to the Casa Mango chips that were delivered two weeks ago. At that time I noticed one of my denoms from Sean’s original GB is a slightly different size than the rest. The fact that I hadn’t noticed it in the year I have owned them will illustrate my level of concern. But I admittedly have a low level of expectation with these chips.
 
Eloe2000 said:
But I admittedly have a low level of expectation with these chips.
Click to expand...
That’s the key here. Perfection isn’t going to be in the 35c per chip price range. But from what I’ve seen of pictures of these, I am super impressed with what you do get. Admittedly for me, I have not held these chips yet but I’m in for 800 tourney chips on the latest round of Aria’s.
 
Eloe2000 said:
Only after the discussion that kicked off from the delivery of my current GB did I go to compare to the old and the new Casa Mangos from Sean’s very first delivery to the Casa Mango chips that were delivered two weeks ago. At that time I noticed one of my denoms from Sean’s original GB is a slightly different size than the rest. The fact that I hadn’t noticed it in the year I have owned them will illustrate my level of concern. But I admittedly have a low level of expectation with these chips.
Click to expand...

MD Mike said:
That’s the key here. Perfection isn’t going to be in the 35c per chip price range. But from what I’ve seen of pictures of these, I am super impressed with what you do get. Admittedly for me, I have not held these chips yet but I’m in for 800 tourney chips on the latest round of Aria’s.
Click to expand...

I'm not complaining; just curious. As far as the 35-cent-category goes, I don't think you can complain much. But I would have expected the quality to suffer in difference areas, such as the printing. I've seen dithering problems on some samples (it's worse on the originals from Tina; newer ones seem to have less of that problem).

... but I was kind of surprised to see such a difference in the diameters. Blanks are blanks, made in a mold, so the fact that some are larger would seem to point to mixing different blanks in my mind. I was curious if someone would have come out to say "Oh yeah, all $5 New China Clubs are 39.5mm" or "Yeah, there's a mix because Tina mixed stock between vendors".
 
BearMetal said:
I'm not complaining; just curious. As far as the 35-cent-category goes, I don't think you can complain much. But I would have expected the quality to suffer in difference areas, such as the printing. I've seen dithering problems on some samples (it's worse on the originals from Tina; newer ones seem to have less of that problem).

... but I was kind of surprised to see such a difference in the diameters. Blanks are blanks, made in a mold, so the fact that some are larger would seem to point to mixing different blanks in my mind. I was curious if someone would have come out to say "Oh yeah, all $5 New China Clubs are 39.5mm" or "Yeah, there's a mix because Tina mixed stock between vendors".
Click to expand...

For sure. It’s good for people to be aware of all of this stuff so they can make good decisions for themselves. I will measure mine from the first GB as well as some from this recent shipment when I get a chance tonight.
 
BearMetal said:
I'm not complaining; just curious. As far as the 35-cent-category goes, I don't think you can complain much. But I would have expected the quality to suffer in difference areas, such as the printing. I've seen dithering problems on some samples (it's worse on the originals from Tina; newer ones seem to have less of that problem).

... but I was kind of surprised to see such a difference in the diameters. Blanks are blanks, made in a mold, so the fact that some are larger would seem to point to mixing different blanks in my mind. I was curious if someone would have come out to say "Oh yeah, all $5 New China Clubs are 39.5mm" or "Yeah, there's a mix because Tina mixed stock between vendors".
Click to expand...

Probably they use cheaper blanks. And the reason why they are cheaper compared to SF for instance is probably QC.
Cards Mold have spinner. Having inconsistent diameter could also be due to a lower level QC.
That's where they save $$ imho.
 
The different diameters could be due to using different molds to make the blanks, or due to wide tolerances during the finishing step. I don't know for certain, but probably the blanks are finished on a grinder or lathe similar to how clays are, and for similar purposes; if so, different batches might have been ground to different sizes, either due to normal variance or operator error that wasn't caught during QA (to whatever degree these chips are subjected to QA when making the blanks).

Close inspection might suggest which of these two possibilities was the source of the discrepancy. If they were made in different molds, there would probably be other differences in the molds besides just the diameter.
 
CrazyEddie said:
The different diameters could be due to using different molds to make the blanks, or due to wide tolerances during the finishing step. I don't know for certain, but probably the blanks are finished on a grinder or lathe similar to how clays are, and for similar purposes; if so, different batches might have been ground to different sizes, either due to normal variance or operator error that wasn't caught during QA (to whatever degree these chips are subjected to QA when making the blanks).

Close inspection might suggest which of these two possibilities was the source of the discrepancy. If they were made in different molds, there would probably be other differences in the molds besides just the diameter.
Click to expand...
If they were finished on a grinder, I would have expected the injection mold nub to be non-existent, but it's there. My hope was that it was just because they use different sources for blanks, and perhaps some of them were a little bigger. If everyone came out of the woodwork and said, "Yup, my New China Club $1s and $5s are bigger", that would indicate the blanks they used for those were different.

If people said "mine are mixed, mostly 39mm, some 39.5mm", that would mean that the quality control was probably to blame.
 
BearMetal said:
If they were finished on a grinder, I would have expected the injection mold nub to be non-existent, but it's there. My hope was that it was just because they use different sources for blanks, and perhaps some of them were a little bigger. If everyone came out of the woodwork and said, "Yup, my New China Club $1s and $5s are bigger", that would indicate the blanks they used for those were different.

If people said "mine are mixed, mostly 39mm, some 39.5mm", that would mean that the quality control was probably to blame.
Click to expand...
Can that nipple be sanded down with a high grit sandpaper?
 
MD Mike said:
Can that nipple be sanded down with a high grit sandpaper?
Click to expand...
Your question made me take another look; the larger 39.5mm chips have a more pronounced nipple. The other chips have either a very minimal one or none at all, indicating that this could be a sanding issue as @CrazyEddie suggested.
 
I think they are just two different blanks, from different moulds (and probably two different suppliers). They had "gas marks" printing to the first blank and switched to the new blank. There appear to be minute differences in the diameter and thickness.
 

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