How did your chipping journey begin? (3 Viewers)

[FordPickup92]

Don't you dare forget a 600 + collection of 1980s Hasbro Battle Beasts, Army Ants, Momsters in My Pocket, over 10k linclon logs, $20k in DJ equipment I don't use, probably $100k in tools I never touch, ammo I never shoot!

I had issues Longgg before we joined this hobby!

Oh I did forget about the battle beasts lol ..... whoopsie

 

[Ben8257]

I wanted custom chips. I had never hosted a game, but found HomePokerTourney.com (now defunct) and figured out what I needed to host a game for 6-8 players.

Then my game grew. I needed more chips. The attempt to add-on was a miserable failure. The original blanks were no longer available, so I mixed in ceramics. It turns out not all chips are the same thickness - how little I knew.

So I needed a new set for the bigger group, and someone from HPT mentioned a "Group-buy" on Chiptalk. The rabbit hole opened.

The story I really want to hear about though, is @Ben8257 and @FordPickup92's

So I get a Text from Brie this morning driving home in this awful snow storm that struck DC. She says "think I just wrote a Ben book!" Love ya beautiful but please hold my beer!

@Poker Zombie my buddy MJ, you have been around long enough to know better than basically requesting a Ben book and thus I must oblige Sir. In the end two things will be certain of you happen to make it that far! Lol One you will know more about me... a long boring uneventful unfoldings of a 39 year old white male construction worker with male pattern baldness. Two, I highly doubt you EVER make such a request again!

I fully expect TL/DR here but to those who are unaware.... Ben Book imminent, Yee Bee Warned!!

I guess it should start with ... "In the beginning" but that one has already been used. Hmmm let's just wing it!

To understand my obsessions with collecting would take far too long... I will stick to the poker side of things.

I grew up dirt poor and we didn't have much as a family. Poker was always the thing that drew us together, most Friday and Saturday nights, my Aunt, Uncle, Father, cousins, brother and God love him... my Drunk Grandfather ( BLD Sr.)would gather around a worn out dining room table and play Cribbage for a few hours and then break out our chip carousel from a yard sale ($2 total my dad paid) for cheap junk.interlocking Bicycle chips. We played dealers choice mostly 7 stud with wilds (follow the queen, Dr. Pepper) and split pot variants like low/high Chicago. We almost always played until the sun was coming up the next morning. Pop Pop would pass out drunk and wake up and keep playing over and over. We never played for a nickle! Just bragging rights! I was about 12 - 14 and didn't realize it then that those would be my absolute fondest memories. We didn't have a camera and never thought of taking pictures. I say it all ththe time, I would trade all of these damn poker chips for just a picture of us all together and happy back then.

As I got older I started going to home games with my Dad and Aunt, even use to play every weekend at an illegal gambling room in South Baltimore called the Orioles Nest. When my grandparents died the family mostly parted ways and most of us quit playing for many years. Only an occasional "hey Benjamin let's play, can you bring the good chips?" I had bought this set early in my days on eBay hoping to get poker going again, everyone loved the chips we just didn't play very often

Slowly we grew even further apart... I came up with a game of Solitare years ago called "break the bank" when Brie told me she.basically knew nothing about poker other than drinking games, I decided to break out the ole chips and teach her "break the bank" well needless to say it didn't take long for two players to break the bank so the set needed to grow

I couldn't find all of the original matching chips to ours so some of the denoms were from other sets. What a mess but now the set went from $.05 to $1 mil!

We played every damn day and my cousin would even sneak over and play solitaire with us against the ghost dealer. We had so much fun I decided it was time to buy a new set of chips and get the family back together for poker. I bought a fold out topper and Monte Calo Slugged ABS Plastics... a bunch of them! Again I know I have issues, too many denoms... yadda yadda same as most coming into the hobby.

Yeah for an 8 - 10 handed T2k SS I think I went a little over board, but I LOVE poker chips! The game went well, everyone asked when was the next one... I was bringing my family back together with poker! Why that meant I needed even more chips I have no clue. But I found the 08 Casino Royale slugged chips and fell in love! @FordPickup92 found a vendor in Vegas with a damn warehouse full of the $1ks and $10ks but nothing else, I found the $25s and $100s on a dart surplus site... and thus started the search that lead us to PCF

Now its massive and have never played them! I know... I know

While browsing the forums I instantly fell in love with the Aces Casino $3 chip... that one in particular just amazed me. We never play cash but suddenly I wanted to build a set! She found two racks from a seller on eBay, a mixed rack of $2s and $3s and a rack of $5s, yes Brie bought me my first two racks of Paulsoms and to this day I believe the seller was @DMack but he claims he doesn't remember! Damn YOU Niel I know you are guilty of wishing this evil on me!! Haha

I was obsessed and couldn't stop hunting, trying to serch messages on the chip talk and trying to find members that had transitioned to here. Also bought the last set that @Apache had on his website, today that set looks like

I was hooked no way out now! Again WE DID NOT PLAY ANY CASH IN OUR HOME GAMES!!

Obviously being a Bond Fan I quickly fell in love with the Paulson Mold 05 CDIs, bright and inviting and Bond related memorobilia... man I wanted them but $3 a chip for poker chips?? Are you guys insane! No way would I ever be able to afford those! I was struggling with $.50 for my slugged Royales! Haha

So I wake up early and refresh the classifieds one day and see this baby set listed by @HawaiiChips

For $2.50 per chip... wait a minute... that's a deal! Maybe I could have a small "special occasion holiday set or something" I couldn't say Dibs fast enough, I got them... my heart melted and umm that special occasion small set grew, and so did the price to wrangle in some of those.

Now owning a cash set... but never playing cash, never hosting more than one table I knew this was ridiculous but couldn't stop! I thought... well maybe I can built a micro set and get them to play nickle/dime cash. BTW to date still have never played cash with the family! Lol but ai found a small set of Paulson Fan of Cards on eBay and thought... real clay chips down to the nickle, I have to have them! Unfortunately no $1s or $5s so I started serching and quickly found that there were more BCC versions in the wild and kept on adding on other denom to get enough $1s. Then why just have a $.05/$.10 set, should definitely also do a $.10/$.20 and definitely should be able to cover two tables with each. Took a year and a half but this monster was born!

The point of the story... I have no restraint or self control and also a lover that encourages my addiction.... how else did you think this was going to turn out? Lol

Then factor in the ever more rarity/scarcity of collectibles to the mix, meeting a ton of absolutely amazing people and here we are 3 years later with something like 36 playable sets of poker chips! Absolutely ridiculous, honestly nothing more than an unhealthy addiction/drug. Every single time I say "that'senough" something draws me back In... like "ok no more sets in 2022" the first day @Tommy "hey Ben Congratulations, you won the golden ticket giveaway!" Super excited but at the same time FML... maybe 2023? Haha

Happy Chippin Folks
Ben

 

[Poker Zombie]

Ben book requested.

Ben...

 

[borisasaurus]

So I get a Text from Brie this morning driving home in this awful snow storm that struck DC. She says "think I just wrote a Ben book!" Love ya beautiful but please hold my beer!

Love reading this story. Reminds me of the games of Whist my family had when I was younger. If it makes you feel any better about having a cash set and never playing cash... I ordered my first full t5 base tourney set with no friends to play with . Come to think of it, I've had a few weird collections over the years myself.....coins, glass, guitars....it's almost like there's a personality type or something hahaha

Luckily my GF has absolutely no understanding why i would need more than one type of poker chip so maybe that will help keep me in check...although I've already got more shuffle stacks and barrels on their way to my house

 

[Phantom]

Like this -
https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/phantoms-chip-set-journey.8999/

 

[Ben8257]

Ben book requested.

Ben...
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Absolutely correct except all on my phone brotha!!

 

[Mr_Y3RAC]

Its a similar story to all of you guys here.

I played almost every weekend with my university buddies and always felt bad about not being able to host. I always wanted a poker set but I never really pulled the trigger. I mean I rarely knew poker before university but I thought playing with other people might be a good way to meet new people.

When COVID-19 hit I was like: "Ok what are you going to do with your time now?" Of course search for poker chips.
And so I started to watch every single @Hobbyphilic video on YouTube and read through countless websites to decide on a Majestic CC Set from Apache which I thought were crazy expensive at the time... oh how I wish those times were back xD

Turns out, reading through all of these websites didn't teach me a thing because my chosen breakdown wasn't really effective. I still don't know what I was thinking. Still, I would consider them to be a huge win! Everyone loved them and I was able to host our little Cash game.

To overcome the time it took for the chips to be shipped to Germany I bought a single barrel of WTHC T100 Chips off eBay to see how Paulsons would handle. The first nail in the coffin... I instantly knew that I would need some more Paulson's in the future...

While browsing the forum on a daily basis I stumbled across a sale thread from @OfficerLovejoy who advertised IOC primary fracs. I don't know why, but I just had to have them. Surprisingly he lived about 15-20min away at that time so I went to meet him to purchase the chips.

No turning back now (Final nail...) Angelo and I just continued to talk about poker chips and he convinced me to get Cheap Paulsons through a Chip Room sale and the rest is history...

I came here for the poker chips and the knowledge but stayed for the community. It's just unparalleled thank you, guys!

 

[wendell]

Started with a set of 8-stripe slugs similar to the first picture in Ben's post above, denoms 1-5-10-25-50. I was using HomePokerTourney to figure out how to run tournaments, and while I had enough chips to run games, I was quickly in the market to find a cooler set with larger denoms to replicate the casino/WSOP structures and the TV games.

Which lead me to chiptalk. 'Why are some of these people spending >$1k on a set of chips when they already have like ten sets?' Now I run one or two tournaments a year and yet have four tournament sets.

 

[Hobbyphilic]

I started when I was a kid watching my dad collect casino chips in Las Vegas. When I started looking for my own set, about 7 years ago, I decided to make some videos because there was not much online. This forum still is the best place I've found to research chips. Here is a link to my first video ever, guess my latest videos aren't much better :

Right now I am deciding if I am going to repopulate my craps table with something other than my old Milanos, which are in storage with my table.

PS don't read the description

 

[borisasaurus]

I started when I was a kid watching my dad collect casino chips in Las Vegas.

You know , that reminds me of this “$100” chip that’s been sitting on my shelf since my dad “found it on the ground” on our visit to Vegas when I was a kid:

At the time, I was only slightly skeptical as to why he wouldn’t have just cashed it in … too bad I didn’t have the resources of PCF to reveal my dad bought a stamped DICE CHIP! Amateur hour !

 

[CrazyEddie]

this “$100” chip that’s been sitting on my shelf since my dad “found it on the ground” on our visit to Vegas when I was a kid

blessed artifact

 

[borisasaurus]

blessed artifact

a family heirloom, passed down for generations.

 

[Organista1]

My story is like most here, started with poker boom in 2003 we had a regular game every Friday playing tourneys and cash games. Then I started playing in Casinos shortly after and loved the Bikes chips (bud jones) but also loved the Hustler chips (Paulson) so I looked for “clay chips” and found some on DPS and bought a nice set of Ace/king 13.5 g clay chips. No one in my hood had them and it replaced our dice chips, colors were next level Lol

I quickly realized they were not the casino feel and found PCF and joined in 2019, also found videos from @Hobbyphilic and @Chris Manzoni and fell in love with the DDLM chip design and plaques really sold me and invested quite a few dollars on these (still have them) I then left the forum thinking I was done until Facebook kicked me out and I came back the rest is history.. I am now an addict and have way too many sets than necessary

 

[Lee4711]

I had my first set of dice chips for about 15 years. Always wanted something nicer but never thought that owning actual casino chips was a possibility (stupid me lol). Little did I know there was a place called PCF and all of its wonderful resources. Unfortunately this place has spoiled me. The various options I had narrowed down in the china clay category just aren't going to cut it anymore. After holding that first barrel of Paulsons I haven't been able to consider anything else. Bud Jones chips also have a warm spot in my heart since those were the first casino chips I ever handled. So now I'm on the hunt for my first set of casino quality chips. The journey has been great, and it's only just beginning! Down the rabbit hole we go.....

 

[Saintfoo]

BCC Samurais. Designed by Elijah Muse during the CT days.

They were relatively affordable until a yesr ago, but are creeping up in price as people discover them. BY FAR, the best stacking chips I have, and I love the 2 different labels. I believe I was 400 chips high in the bottom pic.

And yes...patron makes you spend a bit more than you should...LOL!!

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Holy shit! THAT's the picture from years ago that made me decide dice chips were a tire fire.

I used to lurk way back then and when I somehow stumbled across @Seeking Alpha Social Club post that picture I snap fell in love with the Samurais.

I luckboxed my way into picking up a spastic 1400 chip set locally for .65 a chip in our monopoly money up here.

I fell out of poker for a bit but I found my set and decided to check back in and maybe figure out what to do with the odd distribution I have.

So here I am, refreshing the classifieds like a lunatic to practice for when I'm allowed to play there.

And it's all because of@Seeking Alpha Social Club

Too funny.

 

[BGinGA]

I was moving from backgammon to poker back in the mid-2000s, and needed proper equipment to host. Bought 1000 blank crown dice chips at a discount; didn't take long to figure out that was a big mistake.

I played with some 20th Century clay Paulsons one day at a local underground club, and shortly afterwards discovered ChipTalk.net, the wonderful world of real casino clay chips (President Casino Admiral were my first), and the corresponding black hole associated with high-end chip ownership.

I've bought and sold a few sets since.

 

[Big Jilm]

Paulson Classics for me. Particularly the $100 and the $500. I played my first ever NLHE tourney at a friends house who had them. I was focused on the chips the whole time. It was my first time playing poker, and I smoked all of them and took 1st. Between loving the chips and winning my first ever poker tourney....I was hooked. Found chiptalk, bought stupid amounts of chips, moved here, kept buying chips. Then, sold a lot of chips.....(currently in rehab)....for now

 

[Josh Kifer]

Tis a long story.

In 01, two of my friends and me started playing cards in his garage. We decided to start doing it weekly. I decided to buy a set of chips for the game. Got some "Casino weight" 14 gm CICs. Tons of random denoms.

Eventually, the game became solid. Up to two tables. Then moved to my house. It was 7 years in, decided to get a forever custom set of ceramics.

Found CT. Got Paulson's. Gave away my horrid ceramics. Left the game. Came back into the game. Game still going strong. My life is pain.

 

[OfficerLovejoy]

Tis a long story.

In 01, two of my friends and me started playing cards in his garage. We decided to start doing it weekly. I decided to buy a set of chips for the game. Got some "Casino weight" 14 gm CICs. Tons of random denoms.

Eventually, the game became solid. Up to two tables. Then moved to my house. It was 7 years in, decided to get a forever custom set of ceramics.

Found CT. Got Paulson's. Gave away my horrid ceramics. Left the game. Came back into the game. Game still going strong. My life is pain.

You call this a long story?
This is @Ben8257 just clearing his throat.

 

[Josh Kifer]

You call this a long story?
This is @Ben8257 just clearing his throat.

A cut it short. I didn't wanna have to find a Sherpa to write a story.

 

[Kid_Eastwood]

One of the first non-dice chips I bought were these :

And then these while visiting @Spinettis Gaming for the first time :

The first compression-mold chips I bought back in the day were these as a small 5c/10c + 10c/20c cash game :

This is how it all started for me.

Kid.

 

[allforcharity]

Back in 2012-2013 when I was transitioning my James Bond themed cocktail parties to charity casino fundraisers, I wanted a set of custom chips for maximum security, and got my OWPS ceramics. It's been a helluva ride from there, and I've circled back to full customs.

 

[mike32]

I played poker throughout the late 80's and early 90's, almost always with @Boother36 at the same table. We always used the same R/W/B interlocking lightweight plastic chips and never thought much about it. Looking back much of our poker back in those days was about antagonizing each other when we lost, that is what I grew up thinking poker was all about. I guess you can get away with this behavior when you play with the same group of close friends all the time. At some point I think Boother upgraded to some plastic slugged chips, then I think around 2000 my wife wanted to buy me a set of "nice" chips and consulted with Boother who picked out some plastic sluggos for me, which I thought were pure luxury. I still have and use this set actually, which I expanded over the years until they became obsolete. They are by far my most used set of chips counting the many times I have loaned them out and my kids have used them.

Then I think Boother discovered the Chiproom, which was literally a couple miles away from both of our houses. Also Boother I remember Clark B. telling me he had real "clay" chips which at the time I thought was total bs. He actually did and does have real Paulson used casino chips! Boother could expand but I think BCC Desert Palms were his first buy, and I thought he must be nuts to spend almost $1 per chip. After I started to host more I bought another plastic set because spending on clay was for fools. Then somehow I caught the bug, I think my first real clay set was Double Down used chips from Jim at the Chiproom which I bought in person. The rest is as they say, history.

 

[Poker Zombie]

People stumbling upon PCF be like...

 

[Boother36]

I played poker throughout the late 80's and early 90's, almost always with @Boother36 at the same table. We always used the same R/W/B interlocking lightweight plastic chips and never thought much about it. Looking back much of our poker back in those days was about antagonizing each other when we lost, that is what I grew up thinking poker was all about. I guess you can get away with this behavior when you play with the same group of close friends all the time. At some point I think Boother upgraded to some plastic slugged chips, then I think around 2000 my wife wanted to buy me a set of "nice" chips and consulted with Boother who picked out some plastic sluggos for me, which I thought were pure luxury. I still have and use this set actually, which I expanded over the years until they became obsolete. They are by far my most used set of chips counting the many times I have loaned them out and my kids have used them.

Then I think Boother discovered the Chiproom, which was literally a couple miles away from both of our houses. Also Boother I remember Clark B. telling me he had real "clay" chips which at the time I thought was total bs. He actually did and does have real Paulson used casino chips! Boother could expand but I think BCC Desert Palms were his first buy, and I thought he must be nuts to spend almost $1 per chip. After I started to host more I bought another plastic set because spending on clay was for fools. Then somehow I caught the bug, I think my first real clay set was Double Down used chips from Jim at the Chiproom which I bought in person. The rest is as they say, history.

Haha!! I do remember the RWB interlocking chips. In fact, I drilled holes in them as my official “security” feature when we used them at a bachelor party where we didn’t know what type of people would be showing up. I still have them to this day!!

I did upgrade to slugged chips around the Moneymaker time period when poker was all the rage. I thought I was really cool at that point. Then I found Jim at @TheChipRoom (on eBay I think) and bought my first set of real chips, Desert Palm BCC clays, from him at his house. I still have, and still use, my DP tourney set to this day. They are very colorful and a crowd favorite for sure.

Since then, I have been to Jim’s different offices several times and have always left with less money in my pocket, lots of chips in my hands and VERY happy!! I’ve even stopped to see him out in Utah, after he moved away from the metro Detroit area.

What a great journey it has been.

 

[texasheat]

So I get a Text from Brie this morning driving home in this awful snow storm that struck DC. She says "think I just wrote a Ben book!" Love ya beautiful but please hold my beer!

@Poker Zombie my buddy MJ, you have been around long enough to know better than basically requesting a Ben book and thus I must oblige Sir. In the end two things will be certain of you happen to make it that far! Lol One you will know more about me... a long boring uneventful unfoldings of a 39 year old white male construction worker with male pattern baldness. Two, I highly doubt you EVER make such a request again!

I fully expect TL/DR here but to those who are unaware.... Ben Book imminent, Yee Bee Warned!!

I guess it should start with ... "In the beginning" but that one has already been used. Hmmm let's just wing it!

To understand my obsessions with collecting would take far too long... I will stick to the poker side of things.

I grew up dirt poor and we didn't have much as a family. Poker was always the thing that drew us together, most Friday and Saturday nights, my Aunt, Uncle, Father, cousins, brother and God love him... my Drunk Grandfather ( BLD Sr.)would gather around a worn out dining room table and play Cribbage for a few hours and then break out our chip carousel from a yard sale ($2 total my dad paid) for cheap junk.interlocking Bicycle chips. We played dealers choice mostly 7 stud with wilds (follow the queen, Dr. Pepper) and split pot variants like low/high Chicago. We almost always played until the sun was coming up the next morning. Pop Pop would pass out drunk and wake up and keep playing over and over. We never played for a nickle! Just bragging rights! I was about 12 - 14 and didn't realize it then that those would be my absolute fondest memories. We didn't have a camera and never thought of taking pictures. I say it all ththe time, I would trade all of these damn poker chips for just a picture of us all together and happy back then.

As I got older I started going to home games with my Dad and Aunt, even use to play every weekend at an illegal gambling room in South Baltimore called the Orioles Nest. When my grandparents died the family mostly parted ways and most of us quit playing for many years. Only an occasional "hey Benjamin let's play, can you bring the good chips?" I had bought this set early in my days on eBay hoping to get poker going again, everyone loved the chips we just didn't play very often
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Slowly we grew even further apart... I came up with a game of Solitare years ago called "break the bank" when Brie told me she.basically knew nothing about poker other than drinking games, I decided to break out the ole chips and teach her "break the bank" well needless to say it didn't take long for two players to break the bank so the set needed to grow
View attachment 840178
I couldn't find all of the original matching chips to ours so some of the denoms were from other sets. What a mess but now the set went from $.05 to $1 mil!

We played every damn day and my cousin would even sneak over and play solitaire with us against the ghost dealer. We had so much fun I decided it was time to buy a new set of chips and get the family back together for poker. I bought a fold out topper and Monte Calo Slugged ABS Plastics... a bunch of them! Again I know I have issues, too many denoms... yadda yadda same as most coming into the hobby.
View attachment 840180
Yeah for an 8 - 10 handed T2k SS I think I went a little over board, but I LOVE poker chips! The game went well, everyone asked when was the next one... I was bringing my family back together with poker! Why that meant I needed even more chips I have no clue. But I found the 08 Casino Royale slugged chips and fell in love! @FordPickup92 found a vendor in Vegas with a damn warehouse full of the $1ks and $10ks but nothing else, I found the $25s and $100s on a dart surplus site... and thus started the search that lead us to PCF
View attachment 840185
Now its massive and have never played them! I know... I know
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While browsing the forums I instantly fell in love with the Aces Casino $3 chip... that one in particular just amazed me. We never play cash but suddenly I wanted to build a set! She found two racks from a seller on eBay, a mixed rack of $2s and $3s and a rack of $5s, yes Brie bought me my first two racks of Paulsoms and to this day I believe the seller was @DMack but he claims he doesn't remember! Damn YOU Niel I know you are guilty of wishing this evil on me!! Haha

I was obsessed and couldn't stop hunting, trying to serch messages on the chip talk and trying to find members that had transitioned to here. Also bought the last set that @Apache had on his website, today that set looks like
View attachment 840195
I was hooked no way out now! Again WE DID NOT PLAY ANY CASH IN OUR HOME GAMES!!

Obviously being a Bond Fan I quickly fell in love with the Paulson Mold 05 CDIs, bright and inviting and Bond related memorobilia... man I wanted them but $3 a chip for poker chips?? Are you guys insane! No way would I ever be able to afford those! I was struggling with $.50 for my slugged Royales! Haha

So I wake up early and refresh the classifieds one day and see this baby set listed by @HawaiiChips
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For $2.50 per chip... wait a minute... that's a deal! Maybe I could have a small "special occasion holiday set or something" I couldn't say Dibs fast enough, I got them... my heart melted and umm that special occasion small set grew, and so did the price to wrangle in some of those.
View attachment 840212

Now owning a cash set... but never playing cash, never hosting more than one table I knew this was ridiculous but couldn't stop! I thought... well maybe I can built a micro set and get them to play nickle/dime cash. BTW to date still have never played cash with the family! Lol but ai found a small set of Paulson Fan of Cards on eBay and thought... real clay chips down to the nickle, I have to have them! Unfortunately no $1s or $5s so I started serching and quickly found that there were more BCC versions in the wild and kept on adding on other denom to get enough $1s. Then why just have a $.05/$.10 set, should definitely also do a $.10/$.20 and definitely should be able to cover two tables with each. Took a year and a half but this monster was born!
View attachment 840221

The point of the story... I have no restraint or self control and also a lover that encourages my addiction.... how else did you think this was going to turn out? Lol

Then factor in the ever more rarity/scarcity of collectibles to the mix, meeting a ton of absolutely amazing people and here we are 3 years later with something like 36 playable sets of poker chips! Absolutely ridiculous, honestly nothing more than an unhealthy addiction/drug. Every single time I say "that'senough" something draws me back In... like "ok no more sets in 2022" the first day @Tommy "hey Ben Congratulations, you won the golden ticket giveaway!" Super excited but at the same time FML... maybe 2023? Haha

Happy Chippin Folks
Ben

Great sets there, love the origin story.

 

[texasheat]

People stumbling upon PCF be like...
View attachment 865402

Thanks for the laugh, its spot on

 

[luvpokerchips]

Got tired of using non-denom chips and people forgetting how much a chip is worth. Since I’m the primary organizer and am at basically every game, I took it upon myself to upgrade to a set of cheap metal-slugged chips w/denoms on them (Monaco Casino from DPS, which I still like very much despite falling down the rabbit hole…)

Few months later and I have way more chips than I’ve ever had, mostly cheaper used CCs, though I’m putting together my first Paulson set now. This hobby grabs you quick!

Grabbed me by the pocketbook.

I found out the "clay" dice chips I bought were plastic with metal slugs. Obviously, that was unacceptable! Then I found chiptalk...

Edit: actually a long time ago the plastic Hoyle chips were common and I didn't like them. I bought a set of plastic top hat mold chips so I guess it began then...

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I'm mesmerized.

Started with dice chips around the year 2000 after playing with a big glass of change for a few months.
When the poker boom started around 2004, I got into online poker and were clearing deposit bonus offers whenever possible.
One of them were a 500pc set of Nevada Jack skulls I cleared through a promotion on absolute poker.
I've been using these for 14 years in my monthly 5ct/10ct game with friends and colleagues. The denoms were used as cents, so go #teamblackdollar!
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When the pandemic hit and our monthly game was on hold, I went looking for advice on new chips, preferably with actual denoms in dollars/euros.
I found Apachepoker and ordered a set of "the bank" China clays for ~$350 which seemed an insane amount of money for poker chips to me back then.
Whilst waiting for two months for the chips to arrive (COVID and USPS did not mix well back then) I found PCF.
Suddenly I realized that the breakdown I chose wasn't as clever as I thought.
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I really liked the look and feel of the china clays, but I couldn't get over the smell.

Long story short, I just needed to know what all the rage with Paulson was all about.

I found @WhiteMamba1646 s flamingo set, was blown away and slowly started to build my own...
About a year later I finally finished the set and picked up a few other Paulson sets on the side as well.

Loved every step of the journey and regret nothing... Well maybe a few chips I sold again because I didn't know what to do with them at the time.

I purchased a sample set of the Nevada Jack skulls. I like how you displayed them in the photos. When I was in Mex City, I bought several sugar skull t shirts. I also bought sample set of the Bank too. The company is currently out of certain denoms. I first saw the Bank on a youtube video for 18XX train games. After that it was down the rabbit hole with my wallet. Anyway, beautiful layout!!!

So I get a Text from Brie this morning driving home in this awful snow storm that struck DC. She says "think I just wrote a Ben book!" Love ya beautiful but please hold my beer!

@Poker Zombie my buddy MJ, you have been around long enough to know better than basically requesting a Ben book and thus I must oblige Sir. In the end two things will be certain of you happen to make it that far! Lol One you will know more about me... a long boring uneventful unfoldings of a 39 year old white male construction worker with male pattern baldness. Two, I highly doubt you EVER make such a request again!

I fully expect TL/DR here but to those who are unaware.... Ben Book imminent, Yee Bee Warned!!

I guess it should start with ... "In the beginning" but that one has already been used. Hmmm let's just wing it!

To understand my obsessions with collecting would take far too long... I will stick to the poker side of things.

I grew up dirt poor and we didn't have much as a family. Poker was always the thing that drew us together, most Friday and Saturday nights, my Aunt, Uncle, Father, cousins, brother and God love him... my Drunk Grandfather ( BLD Sr.)would gather around a worn out dining room table and play Cribbage for a few hours and then break out our chip carousel from a yard sale ($2 total my dad paid) for cheap junk.interlocking Bicycle chips. We played dealers choice mostly 7 stud with wilds (follow the queen, Dr. Pepper) and split pot variants like low/high Chicago. We almost always played until the sun was coming up the next morning. Pop Pop would pass out drunk and wake up and keep playing over and over. We never played for a nickle! Just bragging rights! I was about 12 - 14 and didn't realize it then that those would be my absolute fondest memories. We didn't have a camera and never thought of taking pictures. I say it all ththe time, I would trade all of these damn poker chips for just a picture of us all together and happy back then.

As I got older I started going to home games with my Dad and Aunt, even use to play every weekend at an illegal gambling room in South Baltimore called the Orioles Nest. When my grandparents died the family mostly parted ways and most of us quit playing for many years. Only an occasional "hey Benjamin let's play, can you bring the good chips?" I had bought this set early in my days on eBay hoping to get poker going again, everyone loved the chips we just didn't play very often
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Slowly we grew even further apart... I came up with a game of Solitare years ago called "break the bank" when Brie told me she.basically knew nothing about poker other than drinking games, I decided to break out the ole chips and teach her "break the bank" well needless to say it didn't take long for two players to break the bank so the set needed to grow
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I couldn't find all of the original matching chips to ours so some of the denoms were from other sets. What a mess but now the set went from $.05 to $1 mil!

We played every damn day and my cousin would even sneak over and play solitaire with us against the ghost dealer. We had so much fun I decided it was time to buy a new set of chips and get the family back together for poker. I bought a fold out topper and Monte Calo Slugged ABS Plastics... a bunch of them! Again I know I have issues, too many denoms... yadda yadda same as most coming into the hobby.
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Yeah for an 8 - 10 handed T2k SS I think I went a little over board, but I LOVE poker chips! The game went well, everyone asked when was the next one... I was bringing my family back together with poker! Why that meant I needed even more chips I have no clue. But I found the 08 Casino Royale slugged chips and fell in love! @FordPickup92 found a vendor in Vegas with a damn warehouse full of the $1ks and $10ks but nothing else, I found the $25s and $100s on a dart surplus site... and thus started the search that lead us to PCF
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Now its massive and have never played them! I know... I know
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While browsing the forums I instantly fell in love with the Aces Casino $3 chip... that one in particular just amazed me. We never play cash but suddenly I wanted to build a set! She found two racks from a seller on eBay, a mixed rack of $2s and $3s and a rack of $5s, yes Brie bought me my first two racks of Paulsoms and to this day I believe the seller was @DMack but he claims he doesn't remember! Damn YOU Niel I know you are guilty of wishing this evil on me!! Haha

I was obsessed and couldn't stop hunting, trying to serch messages on the chip talk and trying to find members that had transitioned to here. Also bought the last set that @Apache had on his website, today that set looks like
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I was hooked no way out now! Again WE DID NOT PLAY ANY CASH IN OUR HOME GAMES!!

Obviously being a Bond Fan I quickly fell in love with the Paulson Mold 05 CDIs, bright and inviting and Bond related memorobilia... man I wanted them but $3 a chip for poker chips?? Are you guys insane! No way would I ever be able to afford those! I was struggling with $.50 for my slugged Royales! Haha

So I wake up early and refresh the classifieds one day and see this baby set listed by @HawaiiChips
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For $2.50 per chip... wait a minute... that's a deal! Maybe I could have a small "special occasion holiday set or something" I couldn't say Dibs fast enough, I got them... my heart melted and umm that special occasion small set grew, and so did the price to wrangle in some of those.
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Now owning a cash set... but never playing cash, never hosting more than one table I knew this was ridiculous but couldn't stop! I thought... well maybe I can built a micro set and get them to play nickle/dime cash. BTW to date still have never played cash with the family! Lol but ai found a small set of Paulson Fan of Cards on eBay and thought... real clay chips down to the nickle, I have to have them! Unfortunately no $1s or $5s so I started serching and quickly found that there were more BCC versions in the wild and kept on adding on other denom to get enough $1s. Then why just have a $.05/$.10 set, should definitely also do a $.10/$.20 and definitely should be able to cover two tables with each. Took a year and a half but this monster was born!
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The point of the story... I have no restraint or self control and also a lover that encourages my addiction.... how else did you think this was going to turn out? Lol

Then factor in the ever more rarity/scarcity of collectibles to the mix, meeting a ton of absolutely amazing people and here we are 3 years later with something like 36 playable sets of poker chips! Absolutely ridiculous, honestly nothing more than an unhealthy addiction/drug. Every single time I say "that'senough" something draws me back In... like "ok no more sets in 2022" the first day @Tommy "hey Ben Congratulations, you won the golden ticket giveaway!" Super excited but at the same time FML... maybe 2023? Haha

Happy Chippin Folks
Ben

Please make the pictures stop scrolling. I have no control either. Thank goodness my social security check is coming.

 

[Quicksilver-75]

Journey? Who tf here has had a journey? It's been more like a walk down a long plank.

 

[luvpokerchips]

a family heirloom, passed down for generations.

Then you will give it to your young son or daughter and they will trade it in for an ice cream cone.

Journey? Who tf here has had a journey? It's been more like a walk down a long plank.

My journey started when I joined this community after I saw that video on youtube for 18XX train games.

My journey started when I joined this community after I saw that video on youtube for 18XX train games.

There was a video showing the Bank chips. I hope to get several barrels when they come back into stock. I just got in the mail today some Majestics if I ever find gamers for a micro stakes. I got $5/$25?$100. I'll just use them as: 5c/25c/$1.00 and hope no one goes anal or OCD on me.