Chip Cave alright to buy from? Are the classics ceramic 10g from the poker store good quality? (3 Viewers)

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ontheriver51

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I have seen many people advise against buying from the chip cave, but I have also seen some people say it was fine. I placed an order before discovering PCF and am getting a little bit nervous. I got 1000 chips (black diamond) and an acrylic case. The tracking shows everything on the order, but the chip cave website shows that my $1 and $0.25 chips are still being prepared to ship and only the $5 and $25 (plus the case) were actually sent out. I am also a bit worried about the quality as the edges in some of the photos seem questionable at best. I am considering buying the classic 10g ceramics from the poker store because many have spoken for the quality, but I’ve seen some other posts showing a lack in color. The poker store is going to cost me nearly double for the same count/denominations and I’d really like to not make a mistake.

Any advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

I’m not sure if denominations really matter, but I am trying to get $0.25 (200), $1 (200), $5 (400), and $25 (200)
 
Welcome! Exactly what he said above, group buy all the way, you'd be crazy not to go that route instead of these off the shelf everyday sluggos. Read through the group buy thread so you can see all the customizations people do and the endless options. You'll be happy you did. It is a 60 day turnaround, but damn is it worth it!

From my understanding, and don't quote me, is chip cave sends what they have on hand and if they don't currently have it you just have to sit back and wait. There's also been a lot of reports of people not getting all their chips, so count them when you get them.
 
EastCoastCali said:
Welcome! Exactly what he said above, group buy all the way, you'd be crazy not to go that route instead of these off the shelf everyday sluggos. Read through the group buy thread so you can see all the customizations people do and the endless options. You'll be happy you did. It is a 60 day turnaround, but damn is it worth it!

From my understanding, and don't quote me, is chip cave sends what they have on hand and if they don't currently have it you just have to sit back and wait. There's also been a lot of reports of people not getting all their chips, so count them when you get them.
Click to expand...
I’m definitely nervous about not getting all of my chips since the website shows 400/1000 have yet to be processed. The group buy ones are very cool looking, but I’d really like something more plain ( standard $1-white, $5-red, $25green, and no other words). The classics from the poker store look really nice, but I’m a little bit concerned about their quality as I’ve seen mixed reviews
 
Are you talking about these??

1723832529291.png
 
EastCoastCali said:
Are you talking about these??

View attachment 1373757
Click to expand...

If these are the ones they are not the best. I had a sample set of them and was not impressed.

OP if you like the stuff you get from the chip cave, cool keep them. But if you are not impressed I would return them, and then start by getting samples. Ordering a set that you havent seen and felt in person is setting you up for disappointment.

If you are wanting to stick to the cheaper side of things I would recommend looking at the Casino Royale set from Apache poker chips or the lucky horse/monaco casino, spartan, or outlaw chips from discountpokershop dot com. All of those are solid, and make a great budget starter set. I have used the Monaco Casino ones myself for around 3 years before recently getting a custom ceramic set from Broken Arrow. I would stay away from the cheapest ceramics as the quality on them is lacking. You end up with a lot of smooth chips that slide around on each other and are almost impossible to stack.

On what denominations to get are you playing a cash or tournament game, and what stakes (0.25/0.25, 0.25/0.50, 0.50/1, 1/2), that will determine which chips and how many to buy. Also the amount of players you are looking to have as well.

If you do want to spend a good amount of money and get a nice set and go the custom ceramic route (the web mold hybrids are some of my favorite chips). You can get whatever design you want, so dont let the designs you see just on that page stop you. Plus there are designers on this forum that can create whatever you want for a small fee.
 
QuailValley said:
If these are the ones they are not the best. I had a sample set of them and was not impressed.

OP if you like the stuff you get from the chip cave, cool keep them. But if you are not impressed I would return them, and then start by getting samples. Ordering a set that you havent seen and felt in person is setting you up for disappointment.

If you are wanting to stick to the cheaper side of things I would recommend looking at the Casino Royale set from Apache poker chips or the lucky horse/monaco casino, spartan, or outlaw chips from discountpokershop dot com. All of those are solid, and make a great budget starter set. I have used the Monaco Casino ones myself for around 3 years before recently getting a custom ceramic set from Broken Arrow. I would stay away from the cheapest ceramics as the quality on them is lacking. You end up with a lot of smooth chips that slide around on each other and are almost impossible to stack.

On what denominations to get are you playing a cash or tournament game, and what stakes (0.25/0.25, 0.25/0.50, 0.50/1, 1/2), that will determine which chips and how many to buy. Also the amount of players you are looking to have as well.

If you do want to spend a good amount of money and get a nice set and go the custom ceramic route (the web mold hybrids are some of my favorite chips). You can get whatever design you want, so dont let the designs you see just on that page stop you. Plus there are designers on this forum that can create whatever you want for a small fee.
Click to expand...
I play cash with 5-9 players and the stakes are technically 0.25/.50, but we start with $50 and play match the stack. By the end of the night, most stacks are $500-1500. I really don’t want to spend nearly $1000 on a set of chips. The chip cave chips were $0.18 each which seemed like a good deal until I realized how poor the quality of both the chips and service were going to be. I’ll will likely be returning those.

What did you not like about the ones pictured above from the poker store? I am asking this because I don’t need ultra premium chips, I am looking for chips that are easy to shuffle and won’t fade/chip/damage too quickly. The ones from chip cave seem like they will arrive with many defects
 
^What Quail and Charity said.

Also, if it's those you're looking at and if my math's correct, you're gonna be spending almost .80c a chip if you build a set, or spending half of that but getting half useless denominations (ie- .50c, $2, $10, $20). Group buy chips are only .35c-.52c a chip, so you could spend that and change chips to denoms or whatever simple changes your prefer, or even spend a little extra and have a fully custom set of chips designed, edge spots and everything just for you. I believe the set I had designed for me was ~.80c a chip and I got a very elaborate graphic designed and got to choose all colors and edge spots for every chip.
 
ontheriver51 said:
I play cash with 5-9 players and the stakes are technically 0.25/.50, but we start with $50 and play match the stack. By the end of the night, most stacks are $500-1500. I really don’t want to spend nearly $1000 on a set of chips. The chip cave chips were $0.18 each which seemed like a good deal until I realized how poor the quality of both the chips and service were going to be. I’ll will likely be returning those.

What did you not like about the ones pictured above from the poker store? I am asking this because I don’t need ultra premium chips, I am looking for chips that are easy to shuffle and won’t fade/chip/damage too quickly. The ones from chip cave seem like they will arrive with many defects
Click to expand...
So starting out with setup there is a great poker chip selection tool in the PCF resources tab and the best place to start. https://www.pokerchipforum.com/resources/poker-set-selection-tool.90/

You could probably get away with going 600-800 chips instead of 1000. Which will save you some money as well.

As far as the chips. I would not buy the classics from thepokerstore. For that price I would be ordering custom ceramic chips. No doubt. @0.46 per chip they are a much better value in terms of quality plus customization.

But if you still want to keep things cheap/budget seriously look into the sets from discountpoker that I mentioned as well as the cheaper sets from Apache. All of those are solid chips and unless you are running an actually gambling hall or your group tries to destroy chips they will last you quite some time. They are significantly higher quality than dice chips that you would buy from walmart/target.
 
If stacks are really $500-1500 by the end of the night you might want to consider chips not just anyone can pick up from a website at $0.18 a chip anyway for security reasons. The Tina group buy no-mold textured blanks are only $0.35 per chip with ~$25 shipping fee, which works out to less than the ones from thepokerstore and you could have them done up custom for I believe the same price once you get the design nailed down. At the very least they'd be something most folks wouldn't be able to run into by just searching for sites selling poker chips. Or you could spend a bit more than those from the website and get the web or greek hybrid mold which are even nicer.

Even in a friendly game sitting 5 handed you're looking at $2.5k on the table if you're all only sitting with the bottom end of the quoted range. Doesn't take that much more to get something less common and a bit nicer for both security and enjoyment purposes.

But if you don't care about any of that then yeah what @QuailValley said about the budget sluggos, they'll be a step up from dice chips and at least not available at every walmart.
 
QuailValley said:
So starting out with setup there is a great poker chip selection tool in the PCF resources tab and the best place to start. https://www.pokerchipforum.com/resources/poker-set-selection-tool.90/

You could probably get away with going 600-800 chips instead of 1000. Which will save you some money as well.

As far as the chips. I would not buy the classics from thepokerstore. For that price I would be ordering custom ceramic chips. No doubt. @0.46 per chip they are a much better value in terms of quality plus customization.

But if you still want to keep things cheap/budget seriously look into the sets from discountpoker that I mentioned as well as the cheaper sets from Apache. All of those are solid chips and unless you are running an actually gambling hall or your group tries to destroy chips they will last you quite some time. They are significantly higher quality than dice chips that you would buy from walmart/target.
Click to expand...
Where can I find a place to get custom ceramic chips for $0.46 each?
 
demonnic said:
If stacks are really $500-1500 by the end of the night you might want to consider chips not just anyone can pick up from a website at $0.18 a chip anyway for security reasons. The Tina group buy no-mold textured blanks are only $0.35 per chip with ~$25 shipping fee, which works out to less than the ones from thepokerstore and you could have them done up custom for I believe the same price once you get the design nailed down. At the very least they'd be something most folks wouldn't be able to run into by just searching for sites selling poker chips. Or you could spend a bit more than those from the website and get the web or greek hybrid mold which are even nicer.

Even in a friendly game sitting 5 handed you're looking at $2.5k on the table if you're all only sitting with the bottom end of the quoted range. Doesn't take that much more to get something less common and a bit nicer for both security and enjoyment purposes.

But if you don't care about any of that then yeah what @QuailValley said about the budget sluggos, they'll be a step up from dice chips and at least not available at every walmart.
Click to expand...
How can I get in touch with the Tina group? $0.35 per chip sounds fair enough to me

Also we are a pretty friendly game with mostly the same regulars. I’m not super concerned with someone bringing duplicates, but a custom chip is hard to refuse for $0.35
 
The no-mold chips from Justin’s group buys are a flat ceramic chip that can be printed on. The web and Greek mold are a step up with printed colors on the chip, and a high resolution label in a recess of the chip.
The web and Greek mold chips are worth the extra money in my opinion. If you can swing the .46 per chip plus an $80 label fee, I definitely recommend them.
 
QuailValley said:
If these are the ones they are not the best. I had a sample set of them and was not impressed.

OP if you like the stuff you get from the chip cave, cool keep them. But if you are not impressed I would return them, and then start by getting samples. Ordering a set that you havent seen and felt in person is setting you up for disappointment.

If you are wanting to stick to the cheaper side of things I would recommend looking at the Casino Royale set from Apache poker chips or the lucky horse/monaco casino, spartan, or outlaw chips from discountpokershop dot com. All of those are solid, and make a great budget starter set. I have used the Monaco Casino ones myself for around 3 years before recently getting a custom ceramic set from Broken Arrow. I would stay away from the cheapest ceramics as the quality on them is lacking. You end up with a lot of smooth chips that slide around on each other and are almost impossible to stack.

On what denominations to get are you playing a cash or tournament game, and what stakes (0.25/0.25, 0.25/0.50, 0.50/1, 1/2), that will determine which chips and how many to buy. Also the amount of players you are looking to have as well.

If you do want to spend a good amount of money and get a nice set and go the custom ceramic route (the web mold hybrids are some of my favorite chips). You can get whatever design you want, so dont let the designs you see just on that page stop you. Plus there are designers on this forum that can create whatever you want for a small fee.
Click to expand...
The chips (600/1000 at least) arrived from chip cave and they are pretty horrible. The look is pretty nice from afar, but they actually feel worse in hand than dice chips. As soon as I mentioned a return, the chip cave customer service stopped responding to any form of communication. I have since ordered a few samples to test the waters. It must be worth the $40 to get them in hand before buying 1000 of them
 
I refuse to buy anything from anybody that advertises on FB. It's all garbage or an outright ripoff of something else.
 
Off topic a bit, but that's a wild 25c/50c game. I've played match the stack like that multiple times, one of those times the game broke when I hit around $1000.

Is everyone just flipping at a certain point knowing they will just stack up ad infinitum anyway?
 
bmacpoker said:
Off topic a bit, but that's a wild 25c/50c game. I've played match the stack like that multiple times, one of those times the game broke when I hit around $1000.

Is everyone just flipping at a certain point knowing they will just stack up ad infinitum anyway?
Click to expand...
It’s really only .25/.50 to increase the player pool and it can be fun to play so many bb deep. Most regs are flipping for stacks until they can buy in for a few hundred and it just grows from there. There are frequently straddles up to $16 or $32 and occasionally even $64. It’s a very very fun game to be in
 
I bought small amounts of some plastic chips for some projects, and have been unable to track them on Shop app. I ordered on the 10th, emailed them on the 22nd to ask about tracking, and they replied that they're getting the order ready to ship. Hopefully they come through ok, but it's definitely not a fast process.
 
GeeOhVee said:
I bought small amounts of some plastic chips for some projects, and have been unable to track them on Shop app. I ordered on the 10th, emailed them on the 22nd to ask about tracking, and they replied that they're getting the order ready to ship. Hopefully they come through ok, but it's definitely not a fast process.
Click to expand...
I received 600/1000 chips on schedule. The other 400 are still “preparing to ship.” The customer service stop replying and I have filed a chargeback. I could not recommend them less
 
I was not impressed with Chip Cave’s ability to fulfill an order they showed they had online. Turns out they really didn’t, but by the time they were actually going to cancel my order they scrounged up something close and sent it to me. (Milano Sample set, they just sent me duplicates of some denominations since they didn't have all of them).
 
New member here - but I too have been stuck waiting for either shipped product or a refund from Chip Cave for a couple weeks now.
 
techno3bet said:
New member here - but I too have been stuck waiting for either shipped product or a refund from Chip Cave for a couple weeks now.
Click to expand...
I am in the same boat. My cc company reached out to them and the have 60 days to reply to them so seems like this could be a very lengthy process. I have since purchased other chips that all arrived in great condition.
 

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