Molds & Industry - Master Index (3 Viewers)

[Gus]

When I got started chipping at the end of 2024 I figured there would be an authoritative resource for identifying chips and their origins. What I've found instead is five halfway complete resources that conflict with each other, and the deep wisdom available in the PCF archives which requires dedicated searching and a bit of luck.

My goal is to create one 'master' index that covers molds and the poker chip industry, roughly 1930's to Present. I've been putting this together as I've been acquiring chips for a "one-of-each-mold" collection, which then expanded to include "and one version of each chip when it's been made by different manufacturers..." and other tangents (there's both brass and aluminum inlay THC chips?... so those are THC mold... but more?)

This post is basically a call to participate, for whoever would like to contribute their knowledge, research time, fact double-checking, etc...

Where will this end up? I'm open to ideas!

• Official PCF Resource (Identify any chip, and learn its basic history)
• Gus's Guide - basically an updated Eisenstadt, Herz, or Seymour guide that I'd self-host on a website
• Modern Poker Chip Book? Pair with history of the industry, materials and manufacturing methods, etc... self publish or whatever...

--

I have two primary spreadsheets to collect this data and I will be sharing them here. It can't really be done in a single sheet because there's two fundamentally different things being tracked. Molds and Industry.

• Molds:
  • Identification
    • Proposed "final" name
    • Chipguide, Eisenstadt, Herz's, Borland's.... name/number in their guides
    • Description (e.g. 26x diamonds of a square-ish shape)
    • Other?
  • Category
    • Geometric, letters, manmade objects, etc...
  • Versions?
    • e.g. TRK Small Crown, CPC Small Crown, TINA Small Crown (capdash)
    • Dates of mfg of each version (crossover with Industry spreadsheet)
  • Current status: available? Cups/Dies donated to historical society? Existing but not in production?
  • Other: note, origin story, dispute/contention, etc... (more appropriate for longer form info, not spreadsheet cell)
• Industry:
  • Company Name
  • Years of Operation
  • Manufacturer, distributor, IP owner, other?
  • Location(s)
  • Molds (made/distributed/created/owned etc)
  • Notable People involved... (e.g. the Endy's being at Paulson, then BCC, etc)

I plan to formally photograph each chip in a way that they can be properly measured and evaluated, and possibly use photoshop to create 'illustration' versions of each mold. High resolution, proper in-photo measurements (e.g. able to differentiate between a 39mm and 40mm chip), etc.

There are many questions for what to cover, and the edges are quite fuzzy. Modern plastic Bud Jones or Abbiati chips aren't really "molds"... but some sort of are... or could at least be contextualized as mold-like... Modern TINAs clearly have molds, but are hybrid chips, and importantly are often 'knockoffs'/copies of historic molds, and so from a chip-identifying standpoint it'll be very confusing for newcomers to find small crown TINAs and only have info about clay versions.

I'm not personally interested in bone, porcelain, pearl, jeton, interlocking, paper, etc... and that can mostly be classified as pre-traditional-clay era. I'm also not super interested in modern ABS slugged chips, but they're easy enough to identify and toss in an appropriate category.

--

Chime in if you're interested in any way. I'm a stay-at-home dad and this for me is something to think about and tinker with as the baby naps. I'm not a professional, and I hope I don't bring any ego into this. "This would be a helpful resource!" vs. "I am the GOD OF POKER CHIP KNOWLEDGE." That being said, someone has to put stuff together so I'm stepping into that position. I would be open to others joining in, especially if anyone else has had this same idea in mind (I'm sure there's a few of you out there!).

Here are the spreadsheet links. They're set to read-only and are surely full of quirks. Not everybody is familiar with navigating google sheets, and it can be very frustrating if it's your first time. Naming is all up for debate... I've tried to pare it down for ease of sorting (e.g. Crowns look like "Crown, Large" instead of "Large Crown" because the latter wreaks havoc on alphabetical sorting).

Molds:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wyvFuVUf718j5bkU7oW5lSu-UWjQ_0CyjW2TdeuDQAs/

Industry:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1l4TTuOnMtsanjilOlP1VX1RzSjHv0O-crqnMmpZ6WpE/

Mold Photos:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-D0145m2k_Q3gNnJI37FOs_z8pCkOua-?usp=sharing

In future posts I'll be updating progress or format, tagging people in who might have specific knowledge, and perhaps diverting big questions to their own separate threads (such as "what's the official name of a mold?") if needed.

The below photo is my current "molds" collection - column R in the molds spreadsheet shows "y" for any chip on this board. Those molds without a "y" designation are mostly on my list to acquire... a few are in the mail, some I've found (but won't pay what the seller's asking), and many I've simply been unable to find anywhere (such as the Tri-Heart).

Thanks for reading, reach out with any questions, comments, or interest in participating. Feel free to roast me for such mighty hubris in thinking I, as a mere mortal, could deign to create a master list of molds... sometimes it feels futile!

Edit1: added photo link

 

[Gus]

First “like” from @Taghkanic whose posts have been very helpful in piecing some of this together! Perhaps we’ll have to chat about clarifying different manufacturing methods, material composition, etc (how to best present that info when referring to chips and manufacturers)

 

[Taghkanic]

The difficulty of organizing this in a way that is both authoritative and easy to use is illustrated by the spreadsheet (which, I realize, is just a working draft in progress and an underlying data sheet, not a final interface).

I immediately looked at the Suits mold entries—of which there are many—and got confused. The nomenclature is unknown to me... I have no idea what Suits 4x means vs Suits 8x etc.

I also didn't initially find the type of Suits molds I’m most familiar with (PCRs and Avalons)... But eventually found something listed in a completely separate part of the spreadsheet, as “Suits 4x4 + Hat & Cane.” Private Cardrooms and Top Hat & Canes are mentioned, but not Avalons. Within each there are a variety of versions, but that detail isn't present yet as far as I could see.

I mention this single example not as a criticism, but to illustrate and sympathize with the difficulty and complexity of your project. Even with a single type of chip there are endless details to be sorted out.

I hope you stick with it and look forward to updates!

 

[Gus]

The difficulty of organizing this in a way that is both authoritative and easy to use is illustrated by the spreadsheet (which, I realize, is just a working draft in progress and an underlying data sheet, not a final interface).

I immediately looked at the Suits mold entries—of which there are many—and got confused. The nomenclature is unknown to me... I have no idea what Suits 4x means vs Suits 8x etc.

I also didn't initially find the type of Suits molds I’m most familiar with (PCRs and Avalons)... But eventually found something listed in a completely separate part of the spreadsheet, as “Suits 4x4 + Hat & Cane.” Private Cardrooms and Top Hat & Canes are mentioned, but not Avalons. Within each there are a variety of versions, but that detail isn't present yet as far as I could see.

I mention this single example not as a criticism, but to illustrate and sympathize with the difficulty and complexity of your project. Even with a single type of chip there are endless details to be sorted out.

I hope you stick with it and look forward to updates!

These are precisely the questions I'm wrangling with!

Just this morning I thought "Ceramics aren't molds... yet some ceramics are clearly trying to emulate clay chips with colored edge spots that wrap around the sides, while others are just wacky house molds using the full freedom of printable designs... but people are still going to try to ID chips, and therefore there should probably just be a "Ceramics" section that addresses these different types of designs..."

The "Suits" question basically comes down to, "What's an obvious and immediately identifiable design on the chip? OK if there's the 4-suits present, I'll just categorize that as "Suits" which then leads to "how many?" because there's a million ways the suits present themselves, but if you can count the total pips then you can use that as a starting point...

Furthermore, this works from an alphabetical ordering, while the ChipGuide method starts with numbers which leads to all kinds of impossible to sort "2x4" and "4x4" and "3 of X" which are fine for capturing all known molds, but doesn't sort in a sensical manner on a scrolling website sorted alphabetically...

The other big decision is to have descriptions that are based on the shown design/mold... your mentin of PCR and Avalon draws a total blank on my mind since I don't immediately associate that acronym or name with a specific chip, and if I google it I'm presented with the following:

And when I search on PCF for Avalon I'm presented with an hourglass CPC mold with a pegasus, but also a design on Fleur de Lis...

This is the challenge! And there's such a wide gulf between chippers who know immediately what Avalon refers to and... even someone like me who's been obsessed with this for 4 months but still doesn't know what that is.

I think part of the answer is having 3-5 additional parameters to sort by for any given chip. Manufacturer, when known. Sort by Paulson, Boom! There's all your Paulsons. Except does this include C&J, Paul-Son, and perhaps even BCC chips made by the Endy's and later any GPI-based clay chip? Ahhhh!!!! ChipGuide has ceramic chips classified as 4x4 Suits... but it's a ceramic chip and the suits are just printed on, and it's just some random house mold that happens to include suits, but now it's part of the "Suits" category...

Bring the criticism, bring the roasting! This index will be better if forged from the fire of forum flame wars, rather than my own quirky convoluted justifications...

The medium term will require "Here's a paragraph introduction about how to navigate this spreadsheet" but hopefully the long term will be "anyone without any level of knowledge can quickly grok this info and find what they need"

Thanks for your input!

 

[Gus]

Also @Taghkanic your Avalon question shows the value of having the "Industry" spreadsheet/document, because that provides space for "Paulson, as part of GPI, in years X-Y sold casino-grade chip sets to the home market under the names Avalon, Private Cardroom, etc... at these price points and in this volume..."

Which is the kind of info people are probably seeking when they're trying to learn about Avalon chips, not just "ok this is a clay-ish chip with hats on it so what..."

 

[BGinGA]

I think your first classification of poker chips should be into three main categories:

• compression-molded clay
• injection-molded ceramic
• injection-molded plastic

Those are clearly three distinct types of poker/gaming chips, and each category will contain multiple manufacturers and sub-categories.

 

[Phoe9x]

I think your first classification of poker chips should be into three main categories:

• compression-molded clay
• injection-molded ceramic
• injection-molded plastic

Those are clearly three distinct types of poker/gaming chips, and each category will contain multiple manufacturers and sub-categories.

This is a good start, I think from there it could be good to separate by manufacturer. Or date of release if you could find that out.

Also have you thought about putting your chips in air-tights?

 

[Gus]

I think your first classification of poker chips should be into three main categories:

• compression-molded clay
• injection-molded ceramic
• injection-molded plastic

Those are clearly three distinct types of poker/gaming chips, and each category will contain multiple manufacturers and sub-categories.

Having a "material/mfg method" attribute is definitely something I want to nail down for each chip, but I don't think it's the first place to start, especially for newbies. It's just not obvious from holding a chip, and the lines blur too much as manufacturing methods have evolved. My deepest interest is very much in compression clays and their history.

I'm struggling with classifying materials/mfg methods, but am currently thinking the primary distinction is "chips with a known manufacturer" vs "generic chips." Anything truly casino grade is from Bud Jones, Abbiati, etc... and therefore casino plastic has clear provenance. Whereas the ocean of cheapo plastic, slugged plastic, china clays, etc... may have a known distributor, but even then there's the same looking chip on Amazon at half the price... so it's in the bucket of generic chip... All compression molded clay comes from a known manufacturer, or at least one of a few that with enough research can be identified (for a given time period... e.g. Nevada mold going from ASM to BCC at one point).

By your definitions
-injection-molded ceramic = TINA hybrids, Chipco, current BR Pro, etc?
-injection-molded plastic = Bud Jones & other casino plastics, as well as cheapo die-slugs?

The feedback I get from knowledgeable folks the better so I can properly integrate all this! Sometimes the answer will simply be "Add another column to the spreadsheet" rather than muddy up existing data.

Thanks BG!

 

[Gus]

This is a good start, I think from there it could be good to separate by manufacturer. Or date of release if you could find that out.

Also have you thought about putting your chips in air-tights?

Date of MFG is definitely something I've been trying to find for each chip. Molds like Nevada had different owners of the mold, were produced at different times, had different innards, and were made at different manufacturers... so it's been a trip trying to get the time period for each of these! But that's the goal eventually. Trying to do the same with Die Slug plastic is more "OK what's the first known version of this?"

I won't put any of the current collection in air-tights. I'd much prefer to have a shuffle stack of each mold (and each version / mfg of each chip) so I can shuffle them, clack'em, examine them better, etc... I'd like to eventually make videos of each mold showing them being shuffled, getting good sound, so people can go beyond "here's a thumbnail of a chip." That's far down the road!

Thanks for the input

 

[KHarp1]

Incredible undertaking, thank you for your efforts!

 

[Shorn]

When I got started chipping at the end of 2024 I figured there would be an authoritative resource for identifying chips and their origins. What I've found instead is five halfway complete resources that conflict with each other, and the deep wisdom available in the PCF archives which requires dedicated searching and a bit of luck.

My goal is to create one 'master' index that covers molds and the poker chip industry, roughly 1930's to Present. I've been putting this together as I've been acquiring chips for a "one-of-each-mold" collection, which then expanded to include "and one version of each chip when it's been made by different manufacturers..." and other tangents (there's both brass and aluminum inlay THC chips?... so those are THC mold... but more?)

This post is basically a call to participate, for whoever would like to contribute their knowledge, research time, fact double-checking, etc...

Where will this end up? I'm open to ideas!

• Official PCF Resource (Identify any chip, and learn its basic history)
• Gus's Guide - basically an updated Eisenstadt, Herz, or Seymour guide that I'd self-host on a website
• Modern Poker Chip Book? Pair with history of the industry, materials and manufacturing methods, etc... self publish or whatever...

--

I have two primary spreadsheets to collect this data and I will be sharing them here. It can't really be done in a single sheet because there's two fundamentally different things being tracked. Molds and Industry.

• Molds:
  • Identification
    • Proposed "final" name
    • Chipguide, Eisenstadt, Herz's, Borland's.... name/number in their guides
    • Description (e.g. 26x diamonds of a square-ish shape)
    • Other?
  • Category
    • Geometric, letters, manmade objects, etc...
  • Versions?
    • e.g. TRK Small Crown, CPC Small Crown, TINA Small Crown (capdash)
    • Dates of mfg of each version (crossover with Industry spreadsheet)
  • Current status: available? Cups/Dies donated to historical society? Existing but not in production?
  • Other: note, origin story, dispute/contention, etc... (more appropriate for longer form info, not spreadsheet cell)
• Industry:
  • Company Name
  • Years of Operation
  • Manufacturer, distributor, IP owner, other?
  • Location(s)
  • Molds (made/distributed/created/owned etc)
  • Notable People involved... (e.g. the Endy's being at Paulson, then BCC, etc)

I plan to formally photograph each chip in a way that they can be properly measured and evaluated, and possibly use photoshop to create 'illustration' versions of each mold. High resolution, proper in-photo measurements (e.g. able to differentiate between a 39mm and 40mm chip), etc.

There are many questions for what to cover, and the edges are quite fuzzy. Modern plastic Bud Jones or Abbiati chips aren't really "molds"... but some sort of are... or could at least be contextualized as mold-like... Modern TINAs clearly have molds, but are hybrid chips, and importantly are often 'knockoffs'/copies of historic molds, and so from a chip-identifying standpoint it'll be very confusing for newcomers to find small crown TINAs and only have info about clay versions.

I'm not personally interested in bone, porcelain, pearl, jeton, interlocking, paper, etc... and that can mostly be classified as pre-traditional-clay era. I'm also not super interested in modern ABS slugged chips, but they're easy enough to identify and toss in an appropriate category.

--

Chime in if you're interested in any way. I'm a stay-at-home dad and this for me is something to think about and tinker with as the baby naps. I'm not a professional, and I hope I don't bring any ego into this. "This would be a helpful resource!" vs. "I am the GOD OF POKER CHIP KNOWLEDGE." That being said, someone has to put stuff together so I'm stepping into that position. I would be open to others joining in, especially if anyone else has had this same idea in mind (I'm sure there's a few of you out there!).

Here are the spreadsheet links. They're set to read-only and are surely full of quirks. Not everybody is familiar with navigating google sheets, and it can be very frustrating if it's your first time. Naming is all up for debate... I've tried to pare it down for ease of sorting (e.g. Crowns look like "Crown, Large" instead of "Large Crown" because the latter wreaks havoc on alphabetical sorting).

Molds:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wyvFuVUf718j5bkU7oW5lSu-UWjQ_0CyjW2TdeuDQAs/

Industry:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1l4TTuOnMtsanjilOlP1VX1RzSjHv0O-crqnMmpZ6WpE/

In future posts I'll be updating progress or format, tagging people in who might have specific knowledge, and perhaps diverting big questions to their own separate threads (such as "what's the official name of a mold?") if needed.

The below photo is my current "molds" collection - column R in the molds spreadsheet shows "y" for any chip on this board. Those molds without a "y" designation are mostly on my list to acquire... a few are in the mail, some I've found (but won't pay what the seller's asking), and many I've simply been unable to find anywhere (such as the Tri-Heart).

View attachment 1479598

Thanks for reading, reach out with any questions, comments, or interest in participating. Feel free to roast me for such mighty hubris in thinking I, as a mere mortal, could deign to create a master list of molds... sometimes it feels futile!

What a fun project, Gus. Hope you’re doing well

 

[Gus]

The names and the categories are a mess, but I've got to start somewhere! The below Google Drive folder will be used for combination screenshots of each category of chip, plus individual photos of every chip on the list. I took photos of everything I've got on the board right now, and will add images found online to fill in for the chips I don't have on hand.

Remember these aren't even "proposed names" but rather names that sort most easily and are clunkily descriptive. Which isn't even complete, because I have "Ewing" as "Ewing" and not like 10suits 6dice or whatever it literally might be. A total chip newbie will have no idea of the relevance of the word "Ewing" so I'm trying to design this in such a way that even that poor soul will easily find what they need (and get addicted to chipping in the process).

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-D0145m2k_Q3gNnJI37FOs_z8pCkOua-?usp=sharing

Preliminary categories are:

1. Casino Cards Dice Suits
2. Geometric
3. Letters and Words
4. Manmade Objects
5. Other
6. Plants Animals Nature
7. Symbols

I'll probably extend to an entire "Paulson/C&J" since they have so many variations and history centered around that famous hat.

 

[Gus]

I broke "Top Hat" out into its own category. This covers the various Paulson versions, sizes, and even house-molds that include a top hat. But it also includes the knock-off TINA and the old "hat with no cane" version.

I decided this was better for sorting as well as for newbies trying to identify a chip. It excludes the radial diamonds, Pineapple/Paradise mold, as well as other Paulson creations, since anyone who hasn't gone down the rabbit hole wouldn't know to start in a "Paulson" section to identify those.

Database link in the original post should still work. Some pending questions and clean-up to do, but it's coming together!

 

[ekricket]

How much manufacturing history do you want?

 

[Gus]

How much manufacturing history do you want?

All of it please!

There’s cells in the spreadsheet for known manufacturers as well as time frames for each where I’ve been able to find evidence. But it’s woefully incomplete

If you have good knowledge I’d love to collaborate to fill this info in. It’s something I’ve been interested in when trying to understand chips, and found it bafflingly difficult to pin down

 

[Gus]

Also see the “industry” spreadsheet linked above which starts from the company rather than starting from the mold

They go together of course and updating info has meant updating it in both files, but that’s OK, just a bit cumbersome

 

[Felt_Lizard]

Current status: UNVERIFIED.

Nevada mold (Bud Jones/Burt, ASM, BCC)

In 2020 Riviera Danny posted that David S told him that the Nevada Mold had been destroyed in a fire:

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/mizpah-hhr-cpc-sample-set.70898/#post-1434781

@Jeff in Iowa posted 2 additional details opining that the Nevada mold was lost to a warehouse fire in 2014:

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/thre...y-of-the-nevada-jack-clay.66876/#post-1340241

But in 2017 @TheChipVault posted that it was *not* destroyed in a fire, but retired when clay assets were sold to PGI:

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/you-dont-see-many-on-this-mold.25481/#post-470334

 

[allforcharity]

I broke "Top Hat" out into its own category. This covers the various Paulson versions, sizes, and even house-molds that include a top hat. But it also includes the knock-off TINA and the old "hat with no cane" version.

There's also Christy & Jones, who was the originator of the THC mold before selling to Paulson. C&J manufactured (or had manufactured for them) from 1965 to about 1979.
Identifiers are all LCV ("long cane version") and crisp shiny debossed hats from polished metal dies (compared to acid-etched metal dies). Also, C&J formulas contain no lead.

 

[FestiveKnight]

Awesome project Gus!

I think the history of who owned the mold and who was producing with it is critical to lock down as much as possible because chips produced on a mold can vary a lot by whose recipe was used for the clay. This then can go both directions. If you know the issued date, that tells you about the chip or vice versa.

For ceramics, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone systematically describe the different offerings for many of the manufacturers. Matsui comes to mind most. There’s the rounded corners and the sharper corners. But how do we assign a more formal identifier to these? There are soft edge Chipcos and then recently a several listings for these super sharp edged Chipcos I had never seen before.

 

[Gus]

Current status: UNVERIFIED.

Nevada mold (Bud Jones/Burt, ASM, BCC)

In 2020 Riviera Danny posted that David S told him that the Nevada Mold had been destroyed in a fire:

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/mizpah-hhr-cpc-sample-set.70898/#post-1434781

@Jeff in Iowa posted 2 additional details opining that the Nevada mold was lost to a warehouse fire in 2014:

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/thre...y-of-the-nevada-jack-clay.66876/#post-1340241

But in 2017 @TheChipVault posted that it was *not* destroyed in a fire, but retired when clay assets were sold to PGI:
https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/you-dont-see-many-on-this-mold.25481/#post-470334

Great info! It's ok if there's contradictory claims, it just means the 'entry' grows with a 'disputed/controversial' section where different claims are put forward.

I had a great talk with @TheChipVault recently but didn't have all the questions like this ready since I didn't even know to ask!

The Nevada mold is a great example of how this gets so convoluted. Something like 4 different owners over time, at least two manufacturing sites with different materials/formulas, multiple notable people involved (Borland-era making both casino and home-market...) etc.

Ideally this leads to the "molds" master index listing "Nevada Mold" but then "Years X-Y, owend by A and made by B"... Years R-S, owned by ... etc

Thanks again for the links, I'll add them to research list

 

[Gus]

There's also Christy & Jones, who was the originator of the THC mold before selling to Paulson. C&J manufactured (or had manufactured for them) from 1965 to about 1979.
Identifiers are all LCV ("long cane version") and crisp shiny debossed hats from polished metal dies (compared to acid-etched metal dies). Also, C&J formulas contain no lead.

Right, I've been trying to nail down the dates for this period. Also points out why having a "Paulson" section makes little sense, when you'd then have to list C&J-era THC chips in a different section... as opposed to "Here's the THC chip and its many variations, and timelines for each."

I've got the Endy book arriving today I think so we'll see if that clears things up. Paul Endy's son (charlie?) wrote a biography/history of Paulson so we'll see what perspective he brings to it all

I just got a rack of C&J on eBay I think and it was fun to verify that indeed the hats do shine. I probably couldn't tell the difference between a C&J and Paulson barrel of THC by feel alone but with a bit more attention perhaps I can find some other notable differences.

 

[FestiveKnight]

Great info! It's ok if there's contradictory claims, it just means the 'entry' grows with a 'disputed/controversial' section where different claims are put forward.

I had a great talk with @TheChipVault recently but didn't have all the questions like this ready since I didn't even know to ask!

The Nevada mold is a great example of how this gets so convoluted. Something like 4 different owners over time, at least two manufacturing sites with different materials/formulas, multiple notable people involved (Borland-era making both casino and home-market...) etc.

Ideally this leads to the "molds" master index listing "Nevada Mold" but then "Years X-Y, owend by A and made by B"... Years R-S, owned by ... etc

Thanks again for the links, I'll add them to research list

I think you’ll have to get into a structured way of just identifying like, “iteration count” (terrible term) where each manufacturer is the next iteration.

Mold X has had three iterations,
Original owner = Burt
Iteration 2 = ASM
Iteration 3 = CPC

Change in owner adds an iteration

 

[Gus]

Awesome project Gus!

I think the history of who owned the mold and who was producing with it is critical to lock down as much as possible because chips produced on a mold can vary a lot by whose recipe was used for the clay. This then can go both directions. If you know the issued date, that tells you about the chip or vice versa.

For ceramics, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone systematically describe the different offerings for many of the manufacturers. Matsui comes to mind most. There’s the rounded corners and the sharper corners. But how do we assign a more formal identifier to these? There are soft edge Chipcos and then recently a several listings for these super sharp edged Chipcos I had never seen before.

That's the goal, to disambiguate all of this.

The way I see it there's 3 relevant parties - the IP Owner (often the original creator, then whoever it passed along to), the manufacturer (i.e. Burt), and then the distributor(s) for a given chip (e.g. Burt makes Large Key, Wills & Co buys in bulk to hotstamp and distribute). Of course CPC does all three for some molds such as Large Crown - owns the physical mold (uncertain if there's any legally owned intellectual property), makes the chips, and distributes them.

I've seen a few write-ups on ceramics history but none that is fully complete. Would love to figure that out eventually, or collaborate with someone who really wants to dig in.

 

[Gus]

I think you’ll have to get into a structured way of just identifying like, “iteration count” (terrible term) where each manufacturer is the next iteration.

Mold X has had three iterations,
Original owner = Burt
Iteration 2 = ASM
Iteration 3 = CPC

Change in owner adds an iteration

I'm trying to figure out the best way. See the "Web" mold section on the Molds spreadsheet linked at the top.

This isn't even complete now that I've learned more about where it's bounced around, but I'm trying to get what I have found in writing then add more as I find more.

 

[Gus]

Further complicated by two of my older Web molds clearly being made of different materials, but I'm not sure if both were made at Burt, or if one was Burt, one ASM...

So then Web V1 becomes Web V1a and Web V1b...

It's a mess!

All photos are in the "photos" link in the top post. There's a column in the molds spreadsheet htat indicates whether a photo has been added, and whether it's mine or sourced elsewhere.

 

[FrostyStoic]

Roughly how many entries do you expect the index to have in the end?

And have you considered doing this in cooperation with a site like chipguide.com who have tons of related information already?

 

[Gus]

Roughly how many entries do you expect the index to have in the end?

And have you considered doing this in cooperation with a site like chipguide.com who have tons of related information already?

I tend to think projects like this need someone at the helm, a role I'm currently taking on. ChipGuide is unquestionably the authority on casino chips and their vast archive is extremely useful. However their current mold guide is just a 400-item list of rough chip names with duplicates and no further context. That's OK, and it's been very helpful, and these names are all referenced in my big spreadsheet to help link resources. They also have some other resources that have been helpful, but not particularly easy to navigate.

To answer the question, I'd be happy to talk with, and potentially collaborate, with anyone at ChipGuide who is interested in noodling on this bigger chip ID / industry-history endeavor. I haven't reached out very much yet because it's very early, and I've been trying to just organize my thoughts and get a foundation to build on, which can be very difficult if there's too many cooks in the kitchen.

I figured I'd start on PCF and just put it out there, and word might organically spread to folks interested in these things

 

[Gus]

Current questions I'm mulling over:

What to do about House Molds?
I've temporarily settled on

1. If it appears in Eisenstadt's or ChipGuide's list, include it for completeness across guides
   1. e.g. the "B" Boyd Mold
2. If it could be mistaken for a standard mold, or is not obviously a House mold
   1. The Ilani "Canoe Paddle" stumped me for a while until I just went on ChipGuide and searched the casino name
   2. The Candelabra/Trident is/isn't the Stakis Casino house mold... I still don't know!
   3. There's an old Holland Casino house mold with flower blossoms that tricked me for a while too
3. Include one house mold from each manufacturer in order to show basically what they look like (e.g. Bud Jones vs Paulson), with directions about how to use ChipGuide's database to find more info if that's what's desired

Since I've broken Top Hat into its own category, I included one house mold that is both the Casino name (Foxwoods) but also the Top Hat... just to show that sometimes House molds also include manufacturer logos. Not confusing at all!

How to incorporate historic molds? How to even define historic? Is "prior to the era of compression clay chips that included edge spots" rational?

• Crest & Seal, engraved, weird embossed things, paper chips (home market only of course), etc...
• Ivory, bone, pearl, etc... Probably just a separate page talking about them as precursors?

How to incorporate cheapo home-market molds, both old and new? Total firehose of including everything, or requiring they be at least slugged ABS to qualify?

It really helps me to have the chips in physical form to look at them physically, rather than get too zonked in the spreadsheet. I hadn't considered until tonight having BR Pro print sample chips of all the molds I'm searching for... If I'm never going to get a Tri-Heart (Estoril Portugal being the only known one?), should I just get a ceramic duplicate as a stand-in so it fills in the board properly?

Current board status... starting to lose visual cohesion again between categories. Photos of all chips shown here (except the historic batch on the left) are in the google drive folder and noted in the molds spreadsheet, both linked to for anyone to review in the original post.

 

[FestiveKnight]

Why don't all housemolds get documented as their category just like geometric or anything else?

 

[Gus]

Why don't all housemolds get documented as their category just like geometric or anything else?

If somebody would like to do this, I would be happy to incorporate it.

My interest in this started with "What are all the molds, who made them, and how hard would it be to get one of each?"

So I'm not particularly interested in Paulson or Bud Jones house molds. There's gotta be dozens or hundreds of them, and that would overwhelm the collection with Paulson chips with different casino names with the backstory being "a casino paid us to make this" which is very different from e.g. the saga of the Nevada mold.

I'm similarly not interested in getting a chip from or documenting the 100+ variations of an Abbiati chip, but there might be someone for whom that's the grail collection.

I've been PMing with some folks around the proper scope of this. What to include, and what to basically acknowledge but point people to a better place (in the case of Casino house molds, ChipGuide!)

Here's the current very clunky "House" category: