Cards Mold/"Tina" Alibaba Ceramics Master Consolidated Info Thread (5 Viewers)

[ktran]

I know these companies produce a wide range of products, but I wonder how profitable these chips are for them, if they cost pennies to make or what. The fact that they’re custom, and their rolling edges match mostly, and the amount of back and forth with Tina it takes, seems like they must have a decent margin or else they wouldn’t do it at these prices.

I mean it's plastic and ink. I think most of their cost comes from the labor and start up cost for the machines.

 

[Taghkanic]

There is also an Anita as a contact as well. My cards mold set went through that producer/contractor/agent. I am very happy with the chips and Anita's are a bit cheaper. Overall difference? the blanks may be very slightly different in dimension from supplier to supplier and overtime with variances in materials being common.

Are there specific methods to contact Tina or Anita so one is sure of which quality one will receive?

 

[TheOffalo]

Are there specific methods to contact Tina or Anita so one is sure of which quality one will receive?

They’re two separate vendors on Alibaba. You can’t accidentally reach one when you’re trying to contact the other.

A link to the Tina vendor has been posted before publicly, I don’t have it handy. I’m not sure if the link to the Anita vendor has been posted publicly (and I don’t know which one it is for sure), but obviously some people on the board has that info.

Before you reach out to either with questions, ask here since many people have similar questions and those who’ve used either Tina and/or Anita can probably answer them for you.

 

[Eloe2000]

43mm cards mold Mangos have landed. Photos shoot to follow. So good. I went with a full size inlay for increased readability for larger events with newbie or unfamiliar players and I was nervous but these are even better than my cash set. Thanks @SeanGecko for doing this and dealing with the hiccups. These are the best yet!

39mm Crds Mold: 39.2mm 9.5gram (barrel height 65.6mm)

43mm Cards Mold: 42.8mm 11.4gram (barrel height 65.6mm)

 

[TheOffalo]

I went with a full size inlay for increased readability

Bold move and looks great! Does look like the full size inlay is slightly off-center toward the right. Would that be consistent on every/many chips or different for each one?

(Still not 100% sure on their production besides that they're surface printed, just wondering if the offset would be consistent or not. Or a subset, like if they lay out X number of chips in a grid to print the surface, might all the chips in one "column" be off-centered but not necessarily the others? Assuming--without any basis--that they don't print these one at a time.)

 

[Eloe2000]

Bold move and looks great! Does look like the full size inlay is slightly off-center toward the right. Would that be consistent on every/many chips or different for each one?

(Still not 100% sure on their production besides that they're surface printed, just wondering if the offset would be consistent or not. Or a subset, like if they lay out X number of chips in a grid to print the surface, might all the chips in one "column" be off-centered but not necessarily the others? Assuming--without any basis--that they don't print these one at a time.)

Fortunately my players don’t play wearing jeweler lenses haha. It’s going to be just as off center as any inlay they do, smaller or larger than the mold. It’s just the nature of this type of printing and also their level of quality control. If you look at the yellow $5 above that inlay is ever so slightly off true center as well. Now, is anyone going to notice that in play? Not in my game. Is that going to bother me? No. But you may be different. But honestly Paulsons and CPCs are just as likely to be off center. From what I have seen so far the centering meets my expectations.

 

[TheOffalo]

Fortunately my players don’t play wearing jeweler lenses haha. It’s going to be just as off center as any inlay they do, smaller or larger than the mold. It’s just the nature of this type of printing and also their level of quality control. From what I have seen so far the centering meets my expectations.

Not a complaint or criticism, just curious if the offset is consistent for a production run of a particular denom or if it'd be different for each chip. Like will every 43mm T5000 chip that you received in this order have a tiny bit of black protruding out of the right side of the center ring mold?

 

[Eloe2000]

Not a complaint or criticism, just curious if the offset is consistent for a production run of a particular denom or if it'd be different for each chip. Like will every 43mm T5000 chip have a tiny bit of black protruding out of the right side of the center ring mold?

Oh sorry. I understand now. I think it is going to very on a per chip basis. At least on other chips I had noticed the slight deviation in a specific chip being maybe towards the upper left on some or towards the right on others or forwards the bottom on yet others etc. But it was never enough for me to inspect too closely. Perhaps someone else has better insight.

 

[TheOffalo]

Oh sorry. I understand now. I think it is going to very on a per chip basis. At least on other chips I had noticed the slight deviation in a specific chip being maybe towards the upper left on some or towards the right on others or forwards the bottom on yet others etc. But it was never enough for me to inspect too closely. Perhaps someone else has better insight.

Thanks, maybe I'll ask the KING (@SeanGecko), but I hate to bother him (@SeanGecko).

How about just in the shuffle stack of T5000s in the pic above? Can you take a quick shot of a couple of the faces together?

 

[jazzV3]

Oh sorry. I understand now. I think it is going to very on a per chip basis. At least on other chips I had noticed the slight deviation in a specific chip being maybe towards the upper left on some or towards the right on others or forwards the bottom on yet others etc. But it was never enough for me to inspect too closely. Perhaps someone else has better insight.

Maybe this detail is part of the charm of trying to replicate clay chips...
They are getting even better at it.

Just like with the split spots on the cards mold, maybe they are randomly doing some off center inlays to mirror what occasionally occurs on clay chips, etc...

 

[TX_Golf_N_Poker]

43mm cards mold Mangos have landed. Photos shoot to follow. So good. I went with a full size inlay for increased readability for larger events with newbie or unfamiliar players and I was nervous but these are even better than my cash set. Thanks @SeanGecko for doing this and dealing with the hiccups. These are the best yet!

39mm Crds Mold: 39.2mm 9.5gram (barrel height 65.6mm)

43mm Cards Mold: 42.8mm 11.4gram (barrel height 65.6mm)

View attachment 849604View attachment 849605

Identical barrel height for those who want to mix these in a set. That's good to know. Print quality looks to have improved sharpness over the older chips. Do you think that's just a matter of the larger amount of space, or is it really a printer improvement?

 

[Eloe2000]

Identical barrel height for those who want to mix these in a set. That's good to know. Print quality looks to have improved sharpness over the older chips. Do you think that's just a matter of the larger amount of space, or is it really a printer improvement?

Oh I should clarify that the 39mm yellow $5 there in that photo I just received from Tina as part of an add-on. Both the 39mm and 43mm chips were printed two weeks ago in 2022. Yeah the printing looks bolder and sharper and the black looks deeper and richer on the 43mm for some reason. I won’t have time to open them all up and look more closely until next week. Then I can also compare against my original 39mm mangos.

 

[CrazyEddie]

Still not 100% sure on their production besides that they're surface printed

Here's a post with two videos that show examples of poker chips being printed via dye-sublimation. There's no guarantee that any of the commonly-used vendors (Sun-Fly, ABC, Tina) use a process that matches these examples, but they're likely to be similar, although probably larger in size and scale.

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/custom-sublimation-chips.77284/#post-1573763

Here's another post with a video that shows the process that BBO uses. BBO is another ceramic chip vendor, but less frequently mentioned. The video shows them using larger print media, but still working with the same size presses as the previous videos.

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/video-of-ceramic-poker-chips-being-made.9088/

 

[CrazyEddie]

Does look like the full size inlay is slightly off-center toward the right. Would that be consistent on every/many chips or different for each one?

just wondering if the offset would be consistent or not. Or a subset, like if they lay out X number of chips in a grid to print the surface, might all the chips in one "column" be off-centered but not necessarily the others?

From those videos you can see the answer to your questions. The design is printed on a sheet of transfer paper using dye-sublimation inks. The grid will be perfectly consistent (as consistent as a modern printer can be) but the chips are then placed onto the transfer paper manually. So each individual chip will have slight variations in registration, and those registration errors will be inconsistent from chip to chip.

The better the worker is at carefully placing each chip, the better the design registration will be on the printed final product.

 

[TheOffalo]

Thanks @CrazyEddie! As usual you are a font of knowledge and information! Damn, that's way more of a manual process than I was thinking...

 

[Pinesol13]

Just wanted to share a quality issue with my recent order.

43mm no molds from Tina. I only notice this on my blue chips, so maybe blue is more prone to this problem....?

On about half my chips the color on one side is noticably lighter than the other. And on some the color on one side is inconsistent, almost looks like a gradient. The pictures don't show it that good, it's more obvious in person.

Also, I had about 25 chips , out of 300, accidentally printed on the 43mm cards mold. I noticed on the blue the coloring inside the cards mold is very off, compared to other cards mold chips that I have .

Just wanted to share!

 

[TX_Golf_N_Poker]

Just wanted to share a quality issue with my recent order.

43mm no molds from Tina. I only notice this on my blue chips, so maybe blue is more prone to this problem....?

On about half my chips the color on one side is noticably lighter than the other. And on some the color on one side is inconsistent, almost looks like a gradient. The pictures don't show it that good, it's more obvious in person.

View attachment 850716
View attachment 850717

Also, I had about 25 chips , out of 300, accidentally printed on the 43mm cards mold. I noticed on the blue the coloring inside the cards mold is very off, compared to other cards mold chips that I have .View attachment 850724

Just wanted to share!

Have you been in touch with Tina? Or your GB leader if bought from a GB. That's WAY too many errors to let go. She needs to make replacements. maybe they can be sent with another order that is pending or shipping soon to another PCF member. Anyone here have an order shipping out soon?

 

[Eloe2000]

Re: 43mm

I still haven't unpacked all of the rolls yet from my 43mm set. But there are definitely spinners on the ones that I have opened. And I am a guy who usually doesn't get concerned with spinners or believe it typically to be a problem when spinners exist. I had previously commented how bright and deep the print was on the inlay portion of the chip. People had also commented that the print on the inside of the card impressions seemed worse on the 43mm than the 39mm. I need to investigate further, but my initial theory is that the center portion of the chip is the high ground on the chip and the outermost portion is the low ground. I believe this is leading to the nicer print quality of the inlay portion, but also creating spinners on the 43mm. I will investigate further in the next couple days when I organize the chips and set.

 

[BillyBluff]

Re: 43mm

I still haven't unpacked all of the rolls yet from my 43mm set. But there are definitely spinners on the ones that I have opened. And I am a guy who usually doesn't get concerned with spinners or believe it typically to be a problem when spinners exist. I had previously commented how bright and deep the print was on the inlay portion of the chip. People had also commented that the print on the inside of the card impressions seemed worse on the 43mm than the 39mm. I need to investigate further, but my initial theory is that the center portion of the chip is the high ground on the chip and the outermost portion is the low ground. I believe this is leading to the nicer print quality of the inlay portion, but also creating spinners on the 43mm. I will investigate further in the next couple days when I organize the chips and set.

Oh . Please keep us updated. I am considering a 43mm order, but if there are considerably more spinners, I might hold off.

 

[AnteAndy]

Re: 43mm

I still haven't unpacked all of the rolls yet from my 43mm set. But there are definitely spinners on the ones that I have opened. And I am a guy who usually doesn't get concerned with spinners or believe it typically to be a problem when spinners exist. I had previously commented how bright and deep the print was on the inlay portion of the chip. People had also commented that the print on the inside of the card impressions seemed worse on the 43mm than the 39mm. I need to investigate further, but my initial theory is that the center portion of the chip is the high ground on the chip and the outermost portion is the low ground. I believe this is leading to the nicer print quality of the inlay portion, but also creating spinners on the 43mm. I will investigate further in the next couple days when I organize the chips and set.

I have the old blank 39mm chips but this could be an issue with this type of blank. They have much more and worse spinners.

I felt them enough to not notice and center inlay areas to be higher, but I believe omse chips that spinner are just being ever so slightly warped. For these versions of chips at least. There is a slight rock when i hold a stack and press on one side to another. All other chips that don't spin don't have any gap as seen in the photos below.

For the new versions (rounded edges), I don't have one that spins.

 

[Eloe2000]

I have the old blank 39mm chips but this could be an issue with this type of blank. They have much more and worse spinners.

I felt them enough to not notice and center inlay areas to be higher, but I believe omse chips that spinner are just being ever so slightly warped. For these versions of chips at least. There is a slight rock when i hold a stack and press on one side to another. All other chips that don't spin don't have any gap as seen in the photos below.

View attachment 851496
View attachment 851495

For the new versions (rounded edges), I don't have one that spins.

I will test more thoroughly when I get a chance but from my limited playing around with the couple barrels I opened the chips were spinning on both sides of those chips (so not just warped).

 

[JoeBGo]

I will test more thoroughly when I get a chance but from my limited playing around with the couple barrels I opened the chips were spinning on both sides of those chips (so not just warped).

@Eloe2000 Evan, I ordered about 300 43mm in our order and I can’t find a single spinner.

 

[FDLmold]

Are we talking no mold 43mm or cards mold?

 

[jazzV3]

@Eloe2000 Evan, I ordered about 300 43mm in our order and I can’t find a single spinner.

By no means is this a proper sample, but in the unpacking of the 43mm Taj chips from this order, I am also seeing spinners where I haven't seen many, if any, in the previous four 39mm cards mold chips orders I've done.

 

[Rjchango]

Does anyone have the art files for Aria tribute. Looking to make a cash set. 1’s, 5’s, 25’s in 39mm and 50’s in 43mm. And 100$ plaques. Willing to donate. Thanks

 

[TX_Golf_N_Poker]

Does anyone have the art files for Aria tribute. Looking to make a cash set. 1’s, 5’s, 25’s in 39mm and 50’s in 43mm. And 100$ plaques. Willing to donate. Thanks

The rights to the art files are owned by @Johnny5 the designer. I worked with him to design the 39mm chips. PM me and we can discuss using them. He is also working with @Forty4 to design the 43mm artwork. To my knowledge, he has not yet designed any plaques, but that sounds like a cool idea and others might be interested. So let's talk.

 

[Eloe2000]

Updated re:spinners on 43mm. See video below of four randomly selected barrels. I will go through more later but it appears some barrels are completely free of spinners where’s others have a half dozen. While it isn’t a fundamental defect of the new mold like I thought, this is a significantly higher proportion of spinners than I have witnessed before.

 

[Eloe2000]

I will also mention that this mold is by far the sharpest ceramics edges I have seen anywhere.

 

[AnteAndy]

Updated re:spinners on 43mm. See video below of four randomly selected barrels. I will go through more later but it appears some barrels are completely free of spinners where’s others have a half dozen. While it isn’t a fundamental defect of the new mold like I thought, this is a significantly higher proportion of spinners than I have witnessed before.

I will also mention that this mold is by far the sharpest ceramics edges I have seen anywhere.

View attachment 852632View attachment 852633

Yeah it's what I mentioned before. The ones with sharper edges (and supposedly sharper corners of the mold) have spinners and are more slick. My cash set has rounded edges, zero spinners, and no wobbling stacks. They're a bit slick after some use but nowhere near this bad.

I'll try posting something with them soon. I know they're 39mm but it seems the chip types have the same characteristics regardless of size.

 

[FDLmold]

Updated re:spinners on 43mm. See video below of four randomly selected barrels. I will go through more later but it appears some barrels are completely free of spinners where’s others have a half dozen. While it isn’t a fundamental defect of the new mold like I thought, this is a significantly higher proportion of spinners than I have witnessed before.

Thanks for sharing that.