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Paulson Color Samples... a Chronology (3 Viewers)

gmunny said:
This is what i was able to piece together. The first chip is the one that I am really not sure of. The only one that kind of works is Fuschia. The ones missing from Jeff's pre-2002 list is: Beige, Bronze, Butter Scotch, Metallic Silver and Russet.
  • Fuschia?, Purple, Royal Blue, Royal Red
  • Gold, Colon Orange, Grey, Metallic Gold, Mauve, Off White, Mustard
  • Blurple, Almond, Charcoal, Lilac, Indian Blue, Petunia, Forrest Green
  • Salmon, Mint Green, Light Blue, Apricot, Day Green, Bahama Blue, Peach
  • Sherbet Green, Day Blue, Yellow, White, Lavender, Maroon, Orchid
  • Plum, Sunrise, Rose, Chocolate, Orange, Sherbet Orange, Hot Pink,
  • Sea Green, Hawaii Flower, Showboat Grey, Dolphin Blue, Munzell Green, Watermelon, Daisy
  • Blaze Orange, Dark Green, Sky Blue, Canary Yellow, Arc Yellow, Moss Green, Dark Brown
  • Horizon Blue, Black, Radiant Red, Lime Green, Dark Blue, Red, Pink
Here's the chips in the same order. Let me know if you think any of these look wrong.

Click to expand...

Thanks for taking the time to help out on this. I've updated the first post again.

Now if we can just narrow each chip color's intro down to the hour, that'd be great, mmmmkay? ;)
 
sleepypiggly said:
Now if we can just narrow each chip color's intro down to the hour, that'd be great, mmmmkay? ;)
Click to expand...

I have it on no good authority that new Paulson colours were introduced EXACTLY at the 10:00am sales meeting on the first Monday of every month that's not a national holiday. They even had an industrial meat grinder in the meeting room because all the reps had to destroy their obsolete samples right then and there. Simply barbaric.
 
I really like how @sleepypiggly has formatted all the information we have gathered into his OP. Below, I've just tried to put all that color timeline information into one page. Some dates overlap, as we don't know exactly when some of the color sample chip images/catalogs first came out.

1631068474063.png
 
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I just wanted to include another data point for the Paulson chip color timeline, but I'm not sure how helpful it is.

Below is a page from Howard Herz's 1995 "A Collector's Guide to Nevada Gaming Checks & Chips". He implies there that at that time Paulson has about 50 colors. He lists just 44 colors, though. They are the same colors he has on the back cover of his 1985 guide, except that Indian Blue is replaced with Indigo Blue. Indigo is Latin for Indian.


1631086018002.png
 
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Just curious...... I wonder if asking GPI directly might shed some light on when specific chip colors were introduced, or perhaps reaching out to the Endy boys to see what they remember might be helpful.

Sometimes the simplest solution is the best one.
 
BGinGA said:
Just curious...... I wonder if asking GPI directly might shed some light on when specific chip colors were introduced, or perhaps reaching out to the Endy boys to see what they remember might be helpful.

Sometimes the simplest solution is the best one.
Click to expand...

I know Mike Endy was on CT back in the day, but don't have his contact info. If anyone has it, send me a PM and I'll try calling or e-mailing him.
 
BGinGA said:
Just curious...... I wonder if asking GPI directly might shed some light on when specific chip colors were introduced, or perhaps reaching out to the Endy boys to see what they remember might be helpful.

Sometimes the simplest solution is the best one.
Click to expand...
One place to look for information would be the Nevada Historical Society Museum in Reno. They have a large collection of gambling company catalogs, chip molds/dies, and have the actual chip order cards from the Burt Co., T.R.K., the Mason Co. and a couple of other gambling companies. They probably have a collection of Paulson catalogs. Howard Herz is the curator for the collection. Here is an interesting video of him giving a tour of their gaming history collection; https://www.c-span.org/video/?460973-1/history-gambling

Paulson and GPI have not always been the best in sharing their archives. For years, Gene Trimble (a gambling history historian) tried to get access to their archives. They would not let him record any information from the Jack Todd Co. and Christy Jones Co. order card records they had. Around the time of the Paulson/GPI transition they destroyed all of those old order cards.
 
Jeff in Iowa said:
Paulson and GPI have not always been the best in sharing their archives. For years, Gene Trimble (a gambling history historian) tried to get access to their archives. They would not let him record any information from the Jack Todd Co. and Christy Jones Co. order card records they had. Around the time of the Paulson/GPI transition they destroyed all of those old order cards.
Click to expand...

Too bad... at least he was able to get all the TRK records.

RIP Gene Trimble. I actually was not aware that he passed until just the other day, when I was researching some CA illegals. That was his specialty.

My humble Gene Trimble collection...
Palms-Gene-Trimble_001.jpg
 
I have another data point for the chip color timeline.

Paulson opened an office in Reno in the 1970s. Below is a Paulson ad in the Reno Gazette Journal (1/28/1977). The ad is very similar to the circa 1990 ad that Gmunny posted last week. They are offering just 21 colors to the public. I would not be surprised if Paulson were holding back a couple of colors that were only available to casinos. (The circa 1990 ad, for example, was missing "Metallic Gold" although they clearly had it before 1985). It does at least tell us which colors they definitely had by 1977. I have added those color dates to that “work in progress“ timeline document posted below.

Edit: I have also corrected some mistakes with the dates and numbers from my previous timeline post.

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1631170527336.png
 

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Jeff in Iowa said:
I have another data point for the chip color timeline.

Paulson opened an office in Reno in the 1970s. Below is a Paulson ad in the Reno Gazette Journal (1/28/1977). The ad is very similar to the circa 1990 ad that Gmunny posted last week. They are offering just 21 colors to the public. I would not be surprised if Paulson were holding back a couple of colors that were only available to casinos. (The circa 1990 ad, for example, was missing "Metallic Gold" although they clearly had it before 1985). It does at least tell us which colors they definitely had by 1977. I have added those color dates to that “work in progress“ timeline document posted below.

Edit: I have also corrected some mistakes with the dates and numbers from my previous timeline post.

View attachment 773398
View attachment 773544
View attachment 773546
Click to expand...
Original Post updated again! Thanks @Jeff in Iowa

And can you just stop teasing us, and just tell us what the 1st color is?

lion-king-first-chip.jpg

Paul S. Endy Jr., circa 1960-70s... (dramatization)
 
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I recently dug up some old info that I thought I'd share.

- In 2007, Chipco International started a campaign over "lead" in casino chips (really against Paulson since they are the largest vendor). They sent letters to their customers, and prompted a Arizona health regulator warning specific to Paulson. In reality, by that time, Paulson had already transitioned most of their chips out of the leaded formula, all except 6 colors (Blurple, Day Green, Fuschia, Indian Blue, Metallic Gold, Metallic Silver). Due to the scare-campaign, Paulson finally took the lead out of those last 6 colors. The salesman color sample set in late 2007 had 6 colors on the RHC mold - they took the 6 leaded colors out of existing sample sets and replaced them with the new unleaded colors. [I have pictures of these 6 chips in the first post].

- There was some debate over when "Royal Blue" was discontinued, but here is some info on the reason. Treasure Island, LV had their $1 chip made in Royal Blue. In the 2000s, they replaced all their table layouts with a light tan color. The royal blue bled all over them, and GPI had to pay to replace all of their layouts. After that, GPI removed Royal Blue from their sample set. Even so, GPI still produced Royal Blue for reorders, but no new orders.
 

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sleepypiggly said:
- There was some debate over when "Royal Blue" was discontinued, but here is some info on the reason. Treasure Island, LV had their $1 chip made in Royal Blue. In the 2000s, they replaced all their table layouts with a light tan color. The royal blue bled all over them, and GPI had to pay to replace all of their layouts. After that, GPI removed Royal Blue from their sample set. Even so, GPI still produced Royal Blue for reorders, but no new orders.
Click to expand...
I remember reading that Paulson had discontinued Royal Blue because of a color bleed problem, but I had not heard the specifics about the Treasure Island $1 chips and their tan layouts. I had guessed the color transfer was to other light colored chips. That is good to know. Was that written up someplace?

Using the dates we were able to estimate for the Paulson catalog posted in another thread last week, I was able to refine that Paulson chip color timeline a bit more. I would have edited my last timeline post, but it looks like I can't edit it anymore, so it is posted below.
1632636787182.jpg
 
sleepypiggly said:
I recently dug up some old info that I thought I'd share.

- In 2007, Chipco International started a campaign over "lead" in casino chips (really against Paulson since they are the largest vendor). They sent letters to their customers, and prompted a Arizona health regulator warning specific to Paulson.
Click to expand...

This amuses me to no end, that the gambling equipment manufacturing businesses is filled with snakes, weasels, and con men.
 
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Just following on a post I made elsewhere, if you showed this thread to a civilian, 99% of them would think that everyone here is certifiably insane. Several thousand words about poker chip color samples for chips that aren't (practically) available any more?

Me, I've read the whole thing twice.
 
This is some good shit, love it. I was also thinking about how certain colors have changed over the years. Have you noticed that ? Like for example, when Empress Star came out , using fuchsia , it did not seem as bright as previous fuchsia
 
ovo said:
This is some good shit, love it. I was also thinking about how certain colors have changed over the years. Have you noticed that ? Like for example, when Empress Star came out , using fuchsia , it did not seem as bright as previous fuchsia
Click to expand...

Yes, definitely. It seems that natural variation in previous colour batches were intentionally recreated to make distinct colours, probably in line with more organic chemicals and polymers being introduced into the mix.
 

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