200 Motels
Flush
A friend who runs a local tournament reached out to me for a set of cash chips. I offered him my Sunfly Mountain Top set but the breakdown wasn't ideal. After handling them along with some other samples (Paulson RHC, Sunfly 39mm, Cards molds 39mm, BJs S2, and a few others), he really liked 43mm but didn't wanna shell out too much for the Sunfly hybrid ceramic. I lent him a sample of the 43mm no mold ceramics by Anita. This seems like the route he wanted. He's only used slugged chips previously.
I was part of the original Anita group buy. It's where I got my Aquarium set which did have inferior colors to Tina but it was slightly cheaper. This guy being a non-chipper would likely not be too picky about the colors.
You can see the significant variation in color, and lack of detail on the inlay. I was fine ordering from Anita again keeping this in mind with the next design.
I also regret not going full Cali colors, so I wanted to get new $25 (purple) and $100 (white) cash chips for the Aquarium set.
The buyer is fully on board with ordering from Anita but time was a big factor as he had a tournament weekend planned locally and wanted this cash set to arrive in time for this. This was in early January and his tourney weekend is, well, this weekend (late March). If he couldn't get them in time, he was gonna buy more sluggos. I told him not to do that and if they didn't arrive, he could use one of my sets for cash. His response was basically, 'I don't want to use your chips'. Totally fair. So the clock was ticking and I didn't even have a design (or an actual designer) yet. Plus if I wanted to add to my set, I'd need someone to tweak the original .ai files.
I saw some of the work that @mattross1313 was doing so I hit him up and gave him a few ideas on what I was looking for. He was glad to take on the project but wouldn't be able to start for around a week or so. This was fine but the clock ... tick tick etc.
I shared the colors and edge spot progression that I was going for with a loose concept for something East Coast or Maritime-ish.
After tossing ideas back and forth for just a few days, we nail down the concept and tweak the edge spots slightly. I think it's a winner but the buyer wasn't into the wave and sun at the top but he did like the name.
We did go back and forth on using the name 'Atlantic' as there's been a few 'Atlantic' sets, mainly the set by CPC. We felt the finished product was much different than the CPC and other 'Atlantic' sets that it would be fine. Even if we used a lighthouse.
This is what we ended up agreeing on but wanted to see it in a dark green.
The buyer liked blue better so that's what we went with. The outer white on the demons not pictured below.
I sent the final proofs to Anita. It is a chore communicating with them with the time difference. You send them a message in the morning, they answer at 3am, you reply the next morning, they reply at 3am, etc. Tick tick...
So Anita sends me their first print.
Oh barf, that's some teal looking blue. So I go back and forth with them but they just can't seem to make the exact adjustments to the color that I want. They eventually get to this, which ends up being the finished product. Looking very reasonable. (such standards...'reasonable'). The buyer thought the teal looking inlay was fine but no way was I letting him buy those. Spending time getting the colors adjusted without the buyer knowing was taking lots of time that I wasn't sure we had.
So clock still ticking and buyer has a friend that ships from China often and said it's usually 4-6 weeks which would be cutting it very close. We find out the hard way that Chineese New Year is happening and nothing is going anywhere until after. So we get a good week+ of down time. This gives me time to hash out the new Aquarium 25s and 100s.
I reach out one of the co-designers of the Aquarium set @p5woody who hooks me up with a revamped 25 and 100 in no time. Beautiful. We'll see if Anita's printer can do it justice.
She sends me this with the mis-aligned 100 inlay. D:
She reassures me and we're off to the printer. I ask her about turn around and shipping time, she claims that shipping is 6-10 business days. I'm incredibly skeptical.
Would you believe it, it arrived by UPS in 9 days and only a $55 CAD tax/duty. No brokerage nonsense. I was expecting a $300 extortion bill from UPS.
They arrived with tonnes of time to spare and we got them in action this week.
Have not had the Aquarium hundos in play but here's a close up.
Anita's chips definitely have a lack of detail compared to what Tina can pull off but they saved me some time and a few bucks so I'm as pleased as I expected to be.
Buyer of the Atlantic set was absolutely thrilled how they turned out. I'm glad that he's glad. First night of his tourney weekend was a hit. A $50 rebuy with 80 players. Two $1/$2 cash tables running most of the night. I finished 22nd? Then played cash for an hour, in for $300 out for $750. No cash out pron, sorry. I'll cash out big Sat and Sun in order to make it up to you all.
I was part of the original Anita group buy. It's where I got my Aquarium set which did have inferior colors to Tina but it was slightly cheaper. This guy being a non-chipper would likely not be too picky about the colors.
You can see the significant variation in color, and lack of detail on the inlay. I was fine ordering from Anita again keeping this in mind with the next design.
I also regret not going full Cali colors, so I wanted to get new $25 (purple) and $100 (white) cash chips for the Aquarium set.
The buyer is fully on board with ordering from Anita but time was a big factor as he had a tournament weekend planned locally and wanted this cash set to arrive in time for this. This was in early January and his tourney weekend is, well, this weekend (late March). If he couldn't get them in time, he was gonna buy more sluggos. I told him not to do that and if they didn't arrive, he could use one of my sets for cash. His response was basically, 'I don't want to use your chips'. Totally fair. So the clock was ticking and I didn't even have a design (or an actual designer) yet. Plus if I wanted to add to my set, I'd need someone to tweak the original .ai files.
I saw some of the work that @mattross1313 was doing so I hit him up and gave him a few ideas on what I was looking for. He was glad to take on the project but wouldn't be able to start for around a week or so. This was fine but the clock ... tick tick etc.
I shared the colors and edge spot progression that I was going for with a loose concept for something East Coast or Maritime-ish.
After tossing ideas back and forth for just a few days, we nail down the concept and tweak the edge spots slightly. I think it's a winner but the buyer wasn't into the wave and sun at the top but he did like the name.
We did go back and forth on using the name 'Atlantic' as there's been a few 'Atlantic' sets, mainly the set by CPC. We felt the finished product was much different than the CPC and other 'Atlantic' sets that it would be fine. Even if we used a lighthouse.
This is what we ended up agreeing on but wanted to see it in a dark green.
The buyer liked blue better so that's what we went with. The outer white on the demons not pictured below.
I sent the final proofs to Anita. It is a chore communicating with them with the time difference. You send them a message in the morning, they answer at 3am, you reply the next morning, they reply at 3am, etc. Tick tick...
So Anita sends me their first print.
Oh barf, that's some teal looking blue. So I go back and forth with them but they just can't seem to make the exact adjustments to the color that I want. They eventually get to this, which ends up being the finished product. Looking very reasonable. (such standards...'reasonable'). The buyer thought the teal looking inlay was fine but no way was I letting him buy those. Spending time getting the colors adjusted without the buyer knowing was taking lots of time that I wasn't sure we had.
So clock still ticking and buyer has a friend that ships from China often and said it's usually 4-6 weeks which would be cutting it very close. We find out the hard way that Chineese New Year is happening and nothing is going anywhere until after. So we get a good week+ of down time. This gives me time to hash out the new Aquarium 25s and 100s.
I reach out one of the co-designers of the Aquarium set @p5woody who hooks me up with a revamped 25 and 100 in no time. Beautiful. We'll see if Anita's printer can do it justice.
She sends me this with the mis-aligned 100 inlay. D:
She reassures me and we're off to the printer. I ask her about turn around and shipping time, she claims that shipping is 6-10 business days. I'm incredibly skeptical.
Would you believe it, it arrived by UPS in 9 days and only a $55 CAD tax/duty. No brokerage nonsense. I was expecting a $300 extortion bill from UPS.
They arrived with tonnes of time to spare and we got them in action this week.
Have not had the Aquarium hundos in play but here's a close up.
Anita's chips definitely have a lack of detail compared to what Tina can pull off but they saved me some time and a few bucks so I'm as pleased as I expected to be.
Buyer of the Atlantic set was absolutely thrilled how they turned out. I'm glad that he's glad. First night of his tourney weekend was a hit. A $50 rebuy with 80 players. Two $1/$2 cash tables running most of the night. I finished 22nd? Then played cash for an hour, in for $300 out for $750. No cash out pron, sorry. I'll cash out big Sat and Sun in order to make it up to you all.
