Chiplab Review? (1 Viewer)

[judgeanjury]

I was looking into making some custom poker chips. Has anyone had experience with chiplab.com or have a recommendation of a good supplier?

 

[ReallyGoodUsername]

Let’s get past the first 9 out of 10 posts by me saying:

Bro save up and get CPCs, best customs in town, do it right the first time man, CPCs or bust dude. Gotta go with the CPCs.

 

[ReallyGoodUsername]

As for chip lab no I have not. What type of chip base are you going for?

 

[judgeanjury]

As for chip lab no I have not. What type of chip base are you going for?

When I was looking at chiplab they had Clay 13.5 chips that I was checking out. So very new to all of this so thanks for the advice. What are CPC's?

As for chip lab no I have not. What type of chip base are you going for?

Haha I guess I just needed to spend a few minutes browsing here to find out. Thanks for the advice and direction!

 

[allforcharity]

CPC is the only game in town for a custom clay. If you've got the budget, and a good design, they are excellent.

Ceramics are an amazing choice for custom, and offer more ways to customize than are available for any other type of chip. @ABC Gifts and Awards and @SUN-FLY Poker Chips offer very high quality products as well, just not traditional compression clay.

 

[ReallyGoodUsername]

When I was looking at chiplab they had Clay 13.5 chips that I was checking out. So very new to all of this so thanks for the advice. What are CPC's?



Haha I guess I just needed to spend a few minutes browsing here to find out. Thanks for the advice and direction!

So my suggestion would be to hold off on making any purchases if you're just getting on here for the first time. I made my first "big" non-dice chip purchase before knowing the ropes and I feel stupid now. Mine were also 13.5g cause they try to tell you that's the best but in actuality most people prefer chips in the 10-11g range.

My suggestion like any others here, would be to get samples of a few different types of chips before making any large purchases. As @allforcharity noted, most chips can be customized just as much as you'd get from that site but the quality of the chips themselves will be much higher. Do you know what the total in hand price (chip/label/design/shipping all the fees totaled) would be from the site? Unless it's under $0.10/chip I would suggest looking into your other options.

The chips they call clay are not clay, no chips are actually made of clay even the expensive ($1+/chip) ones from Paulson. Theirs a wide range of chip materials and quality and thus prices but even China Clays (seen as the cheapest money conscious chip once you get beyond all the mass produced stuff from amazon and the like) are a giant leap over the slugged 13.5g you'll get from that site. I'm not promising you'll want China Clays or even Paulsons given their prices, just that unless the chips on that site are UBER cheap, I personally think it'll be worth your time and money to see what else is out there now instead of later.

Best of luck on your journey!

 

[judgeanjury]

So my suggestion would be to hold off on making any purchases if you're just getting on here for the first time. I made my first "big" non-dice chip purchase before knowing the ropes and I feel stupid now. Mine were also 13.5g cause they try to tell you that's the best but in actuality most people prefer chips in the 10-11g range.

My suggestion like any others here, would be to get samples of a few different types of chips before making any large purchases. As @allforcharity noted, most chips can be customized just as much as you'd get from that site but the quality of the chips themselves will be much higher. Do you know what the total in hand price (chip/label/design/shipping all the fees totaled) would be from the site? Unless it's under $0.10/chip I would suggest looking into your other options.

The chips they call clay are not clay, no chips are actually made of clay even the expensive ($1+/chip) ones from Paulson. Theirs a wide range of chip materials and quality and thus prices but even China Clays (seen as the cheapest money conscious chip once you get beyond all the mass produced stuff from amazon and the like) are a giant leap over the slugged 13.5g you'll get from that site. I'm not promising you'll want China Clays or even Paulsons given their prices, just that unless the chips on that site are UBER cheap, I personally think it'll be worth your time and money to see what else is out there now instead of later.

Best of luck on your journey!

Thanks for taking the time to help! You guys are super helpful for a novice!

 

[ReallyGoodUsername]

Anyone whose to invested in something will always enjoy hearing themselves talk, its a fact lol glad I could help

 

[Beakertwang]

I ordered a sample set from them. Regarding the gem edge chips—their best: they’re pretty nice for cheap sluggers, but they’re still cheap sluggers. If they were 20¢/chip, I’d probably say they’re a good value. But at 85¢/chip they’re horribly overpriced, even custom.

For that price, you can get custom ceramics from ABC/BR Pro. No brainer.

 

[tabletalker7]

Looking at how chiplab is describing their own product, it is obvious that they are repackaging chinese garbage. At that price you could get a full custom set from brpropoker.com and have the money left over to get the hot dog roller every poker room desperately needs

 

[allforcharity]

I ordered a sample set from them. Regarding the gem edge chips—their best: they’re pretty nice for cheap sluggers, but they’re still cheap sluggers. If they were 20¢/chip, I’d probably say they’re a good value. But at 85¢/chip they’re horribly overpriced, even custom.

For that price, you can get custom ceramics from ABC/BR Pro. No brainer.

$0.85 a chip? Holy sh**, that's way more expensive than my Big Easys!

 

[Beakertwang]

$0.85 a chip? Holy sh**, that's way more expensive than my Big Easys!

That's for 500+. It's $1.09/ea for 100.

 

[allforcharity]

That's for 500+. It's $1.09/ea for 100.

Even worse!

 

[Eloe2000]

FWIW I had bought about 20 for a specific reason years ago before I joined PCF. I present to you their “clay chips”...

 

[judgeanjury]

Thank you all for the help! Glad to be a part of this group now and learning a ton!

 

[Samuel]

Hi, just wanted to share a ChipLab experience. Ordered a custom crystal dealer button a couple of months ago. The communication during the ordering process was good and the turnaround was pretty quick but the end product left a little to be desired. Below is my followup email to ChipLab (which they never responded to) and a few pictures. (Apologies the pictures aren't That great, but then again, neither is the button... haha)

Hi Sirs/Ma’ams,

I received my custom dealer button yesterday – overall, it was a good experience. I appreciated the excellent customer service and quick turnaround time!

If you don’t mind, I would like point out a few issues I saw with my button. Please refer to pictures:

A – the two halves are slightly misaligned – not easy to see/photograph but you can feel it with your fingers.

B & C – the printing is quite pixelated/low resolution. Not sure how easy that would be to improve? If it’s a matter of quality/resolution of the original picture submitted to you, then let the customer know so they can provide a really good one to work with.

C & D – the printing looks smudged/smeared and the outside border isn’t sharp (bleed over/smudging?). There is also some white speckling in the clear border area all around the outside of the design (looks like overspray from spray paint). Because of the smudging, one side (sword) also looks a little off-center.

E – there are a few blemishes in the finishing. Here are two of the most egregious – one looks like a partial fingerprint and the other looks like a chip in the acrylic (but I think it’s a gap in the epoxy?).

All that being said, most of the above you would only see up close. From a foot and a half or more away, it looks pretty good and I personally think that it’s still worth what you guys are charging.

One thing I might suggest (or do if I were making my own) would to have the epoxy/filler, whatever is sandwiched in between the two halves, fill in all the space all the way to the outer edge of the button – right now, there is gap (picture F shows a piece of paper slid in between the two halves of the button), and I would be concerned about liquids or other contaminants getting in there.

Thanks for reading.

Respectfully,

XXXXXXX

 

[buzzmonkey]

Old thread but the ChipLab at one point was a great place to get reasonably priced Chipcos. I bought a small cash set from them and they came out really good. Plus they had a nice tool on their website to let you do your own designing. I did an add on a few years ago and did not get Chipcos. I used to be on the blue board but hadn't been on in a while and should have seeked out this place first. The add-ons were good but I think I could have gotten a better price from BR Pro/ABC. Chase was always good to work with though and I have no complaints about my interactions with them. But for ceramics I don't think I'll ever not go with BR Pro after getting my tourney set from them.

 

[mnebesny]

It hasn't been mentioned here yet, but @Chris Manzoni has a YouTube video about his ChipLab customs