The Mayfair Club (1 Viewer)

[lherron]

Hey guys, so I've been brainstorming different themes for a custom ASM set, and "The Mayfair Club" is at the top of my list. For anyone who's unfamiliar, The Mayfair Club was probably the most well known underground poker club in New York until it closed down in 2000 because of efforts to "clean up NYC". It was the direct inspiration for The Chesterfield Club in Rounders, and many now-famous pros were regulars there back in the day: Ungar, Seidel, and Lederer just to name a few. If you care about this little slice of poker history at all, here's a fantastic thread on 2+2 where a former reg talks about the club, the real Teddy KGB (who was actually a sweetheart and not a great poker player) and Joey Knish, and he even posts a few pictures:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/27/live-casino-poker/mayfair-club-nyc-881637/

But anyway, back to the mission at hand... I've been scouring the internet for any pictures or info at all of the chips, and of course there's nothing. There are some "Mayfield Club inspired" chips over at Apache, but I have a strong feeling they're nothing like the actual Mayfield chips. In fact, the Chesterfield Club chips from Rounders are likely much closer in style/feel/color since the writer of Rounders (Brian Koppelman) was a reg at the Mayfair, and they did on premise research at the club for the film.

So... gurus, old NYC grinders, chip-a-holics... do any of you know anything at all about The Mayfair Club chips? I live in NYC and while underground card rooms are still alive and well, they are a far, far...far cry from what I've read about the Mayfair. I just can't think of a better inspiration for a custom set, and I'd love to know absolutely anything at all about the chips.

PS - I have a little conspiracy theory brewing that since I can't find any of the chips anywhere on the internet... they are still in play.... if you catch my drift... I want to believe.

edit:

For reference, here are the Chesterfield Club chips
And here are the Apache Mayfield Club inspired chips

 

[stocky]

Try this

http://www.themogh.org/cg_chip2.php?id=NYNYM1&sort=type

They only have one picture of a chip and it's a hotstamp so not a great help

 

[lherron]

Thanks Stocky. Interestingly the font on this hotstamp matches the font used in the Apache design. Is that a standard hotstamp font? I'm not 100% sure how those works. Anyway, now we just need an old Mayfair reg to say whether this chip is the real deal (and maybe what era it's from), and hopefully it will jog their memory on the rest of the set...

 

[gopherblue]

Ah, the good old days. I used to play with some of those folks at Playstation. That place had health insuance and a bloody 401k for their employees. Not like the shite clubs today.

 

[gpc]

I also tried to look for the chips several years ago and only found one picture (which I can't find now) of a 312 white chip with blue inserts and a 312 red chip with grey inserts. Same mold as the pink chip in the post above.

I believe the other poker room that Tim Norton and the Rounders writers did research was the Diamond club. While not as famous as the Mayfair club, I did build a set through eBay.

 

[lherron]

Beautiful set. I'm glad to know someone else has done some digging around for Mayfair Club details...

How common is it for a casino/club to not have their chips resurface on the secondary market? I find it odd that it's so hard to track down a decent picture of the chips.