Chips finally reached their final destination on Monday. Order placed December 10, order received February 27, for a total of 79 days including production and shipping.
Experience
Choosing the hybrid option proved to make the buying experience a lot worse than it could have been. Tina outsources her inlay stickers to a 3rd party, and that 3rd party creates the stickers without showing any samples. There is a setup cost of $100+ dollars to get the stickers made, and if they come back with the wrong colors (like mine did) then you have to “guess” at corrections, send in new artwork, and pay an additional setup fee (which I refused to do). When pressing Tina to get their supplier to show proofs before mass-printing I was told “we cannot control the printer” and “the supplier will not provide samples.” Essentially it seems like a dead end to try to get the vendor to provide a buying experience we are used to in the U.S.
Chips Review - Intro
The hybrid poker chips from Tina are nothing short of incredible. I expected them to look and feel a lot worse in person, but quite honestly they are my favorite chips to hold in my hand. They have a nice heft to them but don’t feel heavy like my 13g Casino Royale ABS chips. They aren’t as brittle as
CPC chips. They aren’t as slick as Sunfly chips. The sound they make is a nice mid-octave “clack” that sounds pleasing and not high-pitched and cheap.
@Godzilla28 mentioned that he really enjoyed the sound the chips made at our Wednesday night game. Another player mentioned that he liked the way they shuffle. If a vendor figured out how to make hybrid ceramic chips that feel like these, and added a nice mold, I’d invest and never look back at any other chip option.
Look and Feel
These chips far exceeded my expectations on looks and feel. Out of 20 people who played last night, at least 10 of them commented on how nice they look. I am personally in love with how the colors came out (except one of the chips which I will explain below). My goals were to create unique colors and for each denom to be easily discernible, and I’m really happy with how all but one of the chips came out. My wife told me they look like candy, and that is consistent with the theme I go for when I design the chips.
Spinners
There are spinners. I was hoping (based on other members experience) that because of the sticker recess that spinners would be reduced or eliminated. However, during the photoshoot I experienced 4-5 spinners total. There may be more. During gameplay I didn’t experience any spinners in my stack of chips, and none of the players commented on having any spinners.
Colors
Have I mentioned how beautiful the chips are? A couple of the denominations really stand out with super vibrant colors. Tina & co really shine with red and yellow chips. The red $5 might be one of the prettiest chips I’ve ever seen in person. The $25 chip also surprised me with how clear and deep the green base color is. The white 5¢ chip is a brighter white than I expected. The spots on the black T100 chip appear to glow in the dark! Everyone had a different favorite chip, which is great in my opinion… means many of the chip designs stand on their own!
Black, blues, and other dark colors don’t print so uniformly well. There are more visible uneven color distribution that look kinda like “scarring” on the chip. This unevenness is noticeable but not distracting in person… much more noticeable in photographs.
Rolling Edges
Super happy that I decided to create some variation in the rolling edge spots. The “randomness” looks more like a clay chip imperfection which makes the chips in a stack look more natural. I think that uniform spots on an edge look a little “too perfect,” and I am really happy with how these chips look in a stack.
Stickers
The inlay stickers seem to be applied well and won’t easily come off. They fit into the chip nicely and look and feel like they belong and not some extra sticker slapped on the chip. The colors printed on the stickers are 20x more saturated than the artwork I provided. Luckily my cash set only used white with 1 additional color per chip so it wasn’t too big of a deal that the colors were so off. However, I ditched my newly made $20 chip because the inlay sticker color was terribly wrong and Tina and co. refused to fix it! They legitimately told me “tough luck” when I asked them to have their supplier reprint them.
Durability
I have no idea how well these will hold up with regular use. My 2 fears are that 1)the colors will wear off over time and hard usage, and 2)the grip will wear off as more and more oils from hands seep into the chip causing the chips to become slippery. Hopefully neither of these happen, or they happen over a very long course of time. I am however optimistic about the chips ability to take a beating. Falling to the floor or rough handling doesn’t seem to cause these chips to break or show signs of wear.
Problems
Now that the chips are in hand, I was able to confirm that my .25¢ and $25 cash chips clash under warm lighting. When photographed I relied on daylight white balanced LED lights but while playing we were using indoor tungsten light. Players complained that the chips clashed in colors, and I totally agreed with them. That is why I originally added the $20 chip to my order, just in case this exact issue arose. The problem is that, I never got the $20 chip with the order because of the argument I got into about the inlay sticker color issues.
I’m going to need to redesign a new $20 or $25 chip and remove the current one from play. Sucks because I really like how the $25 chip turned out…. but I only ordered 105/$25 (vs 205/.25¢) so it makes sense to replace the smaller batch.
I blame the vendor. Tina and Co. claimed they could print any color (which I knew wasn’t true anyway) but when the time came they claimed that they have a hard time with shades of blue. The shade I got for the .25¢ chip is not a shade I am particularly happy with. I love the spots and the chip overall, just not the base color of the chip.
Likelihood to Recommend
At the price of less than 50¢/chip all-in, I would give this experience 5-stars for the product and 1.5-stars for the service/process. I would totally recommend this product to anyone interested in custom or tribute chips in bulk quantities. Anything less than 2,000 chips I would recommend ordering from BRpoker (or even Sunfly for that matter), but in bulk I don’t think this product offering can be beat by anyone anywhere.
Summary
In my opinion this is the best chip product on the market as a budget customs shopper. You couldn’t find a worse customer experience if you tried, so beware if you decide to travel this path. It reminds me a little of my early troubles communicated with Sunfly, so maybe Tina and co. (specifically Lyman) will learn over time how to communicate better and deliver on their promises.
I couldn’t be happier with how the tournament set turned out, and once I fix my .25¢/$25 issue I’ll be happy and settled with my cash set as well.
I hope these detailed write-ups will help someone else on the fence of making a decision. Cheers!