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The Protégé Thread (3 Viewers)
- Thread starter Joe Harris
- Start date
Took some updated family shots of the cash set including the nickels that @Irish and I timeshare on!
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@Thomacetti was there any further development on this by any chance?I contacted William Coughlan twice after our last contact, no word back yet
He was going to contact Stephan Aarstol, to make sure we are in the clear running a new DB & plaques.
I'll stay on this...hope this get's a go
ThinkingFold
Flush
Hello Protegé people
I was able to get in direct contact with William Coughlan, the creator of the original artwork.
No.... he has no chips/set he wants to unload (had to ask right) but mostly wanted to know if we were able to revive the artwork for plaques & DB's.
And YEEEES we can...he still has the original artworks
But he first wanted to contact former Sidepot owner Stephan Aarstol, to make sure we are in the clear running a new DB & plaques GB.
Will keep you all posted but this is great news (imho)...MSK plaques anyone
@Joe Harris...honor whome honor is due...I linked him to your resource page (and PCF obv.) and he liked it a lot
@Thomacetti With all the dealer button buys going on, I thought of this. Heard anything back about the Protege artwork by chance?
They're still alive and well. I should probably drag the entire family out for a photo shoot at some point:
OP
OP
For the love of god, please drag the entire family out for a photo shoot!!
The people demand it. I am people.
I am people, also!For the love of god, please drag the entire family out for a photo shoot!!
The people demand it. I am people.
No family photos yet, but those who follow this thread might find some stuff in the chip disasters thread interesting, specifically this post and this post.
On the subject of variants, I have some information to offer. The original dealer buttons were purchased in a group buy in 2006 on CT. You can see the web archive of it here. The image of the final product is similar to the v2 button, but I do not think it is the same. A second group buy happened in 2008. I don’t know what that production run looked like, but it could be what you call v1. It’s not obvious in the picture, but if the gallery’s v1 and v2 match mine, the v1 is glossy and the v2 has a matte finish. Both group buys were run by @EmptyPocs.
This is where things get more confusing to me. I purchased three dealer buttons from Sidepot in 2013, and another seven in 2015. The seven I bought from Sidepot in 2015 are easy to identify (more on that later), but I’m not so sure about the three I bought in 2013. I know I got one dealer button when I bought the denominated supplemental chips from @EmptyPocs, and somewhere along the way I picked up three other buttons. One of those may have also been from @EmptyPocs when I bought his non-denominated supplemental chips, and the other ones must have come with some other sets I bought. In total, I have four or five varieties of dealer buttons.
What the gallery calls v1 I suspect came from the second group buy. Perhaps @EmptyPocs can confirm or refute. v2 on the tracker matches what I got from Sidepot’s website in 2013. The image from the original group buy appears to match one of my buttons that is identifiable by significantly darker shading around the perimeter. I do not think this version is the same as v2. I also have one that is darker than the v2, but lighter than the one I’m attributing to the original group buy. Perhaps it’s a different production run, perhaps it just got more dye than the others. I also have the seven that I bought in 2015, which are not dyed all the way to the perimeter of the button. I am not a fan of that look.
Here are examples of each type of button I have:
Enough about the buttons; on to the chips! I have not dug through my chips hunting for variants, but I recalled a conversation with @PhilLaFond in 2013 where he told me that his $500 chips had a larger diameter than other Protégé chips. He was nice enough to send one to me (in addition to being nice enough to sell me chips to start filling gaps in my Protégé set), and I went and tracked it down. It’s the same size as the oversized $25 I have ($25 v5), and otherwise matches the $500 v3. Unfortunately, one entire rack of my $500s is oversized, so I guess that rack is just for looks. I may have bought that rack from from @PhilLaFond some years later; I can’t recall. WTB $500s I guess.
Moving on to the $5 chip, I have two different shades of spot colors. Neither are exact matches for colors in my BCC color samples, but the lighter spots (most common?) are closer to mustard than tan, while the tan (?) ones are notably darker than most $5s I have. My lighter tan/mustard chips could all be from the same production run, so they could be the anomaly and I wouldn't know it. They are a close match to my red ND chips though, which are slightly lighter but still reasonably close. The base color seems within tolerance for different production runs of the same chip, while the edgespot differences stand out in person.
In summary, I propose:
-Tentative attribution of Dealer Button v1 to group buy #2 (2008), sanctioned by Sidepot:
-Tentative attribution of Dealer Button v2 to a stock offering on Sidepot / buypokerchips.com (2013):
-Addition of a new Dealer Button with tentative attribution to group buy #1 (2006), sanctioned by Sidepot:
-Addition of a new Dealer Button sold by Sidepot as a stock offering on buypokerchips.com (2015):
-Potential addition of a darker variation of the v2 Dealer Button that could just be from a different production run of the v2 (?):
-Addition of oversized $500 chip (on right) otherwise matching v3:
-Potential addition of spot color variation to the $5 chip, otherwise matching v1:
That’s all I have for now, but there will be more to follow! Please let me know if I can provide better images or anything else to help show the potential variants.
On the subject of variants, I have some information to offer. The original dealer buttons were purchased in a group buy in 2006 on CT. You can see the web archive of it here. The image of the final product is similar to the v2 button, but I do not think it is the same. A second group buy happened in 2008. I don’t know what that production run looked like, but it could be what you call v1. It’s not obvious in the picture, but if the gallery’s v1 and v2 match mine, the v1 is glossy and the v2 has a matte finish. Both group buys were run by @EmptyPocs.
This is where things get more confusing to me. I purchased three dealer buttons from Sidepot in 2013, and another seven in 2015. The seven I bought from Sidepot in 2015 are easy to identify (more on that later), but I’m not so sure about the three I bought in 2013. I know I got one dealer button when I bought the denominated supplemental chips from @EmptyPocs, and somewhere along the way I picked up three other buttons. One of those may have also been from @EmptyPocs when I bought his non-denominated supplemental chips, and the other ones must have come with some other sets I bought. In total, I have four or five varieties of dealer buttons.
What the gallery calls v1 I suspect came from the second group buy. Perhaps @EmptyPocs can confirm or refute. v2 on the tracker matches what I got from Sidepot’s website in 2013. The image from the original group buy appears to match one of my buttons that is identifiable by significantly darker shading around the perimeter. I do not think this version is the same as v2. I also have one that is darker than the v2, but lighter than the one I’m attributing to the original group buy. Perhaps it’s a different production run, perhaps it just got more dye than the others. I also have the seven that I bought in 2015, which are not dyed all the way to the perimeter of the button. I am not a fan of that look.
Here are examples of each type of button I have:
Enough about the buttons; on to the chips! I have not dug through my chips hunting for variants, but I recalled a conversation with @PhilLaFond in 2013 where he told me that his $500 chips had a larger diameter than other Protégé chips. He was nice enough to send one to me (in addition to being nice enough to sell me chips to start filling gaps in my Protégé set), and I went and tracked it down. It’s the same size as the oversized $25 I have ($25 v5), and otherwise matches the $500 v3. Unfortunately, one entire rack of my $500s is oversized, so I guess that rack is just for looks. I may have bought that rack from from @PhilLaFond some years later; I can’t recall. WTB $500s I guess.
Moving on to the $5 chip, I have two different shades of spot colors. Neither are exact matches for colors in my BCC color samples, but the lighter spots (most common?) are closer to mustard than tan, while the tan (?) ones are notably darker than most $5s I have. My lighter tan/mustard chips could all be from the same production run, so they could be the anomaly and I wouldn't know it. They are a close match to my red ND chips though, which are slightly lighter but still reasonably close. The base color seems within tolerance for different production runs of the same chip, while the edgespot differences stand out in person.
In summary, I propose:
-Tentative attribution of Dealer Button v1 to group buy #2 (2008), sanctioned by Sidepot:
-Tentative attribution of Dealer Button v2 to a stock offering on Sidepot / buypokerchips.com (2013):
-Addition of a new Dealer Button with tentative attribution to group buy #1 (2006), sanctioned by Sidepot:
-Addition of a new Dealer Button sold by Sidepot as a stock offering on buypokerchips.com (2015):
-Potential addition of a darker variation of the v2 Dealer Button that could just be from a different production run of the v2 (?):
-Addition of oversized $500 chip (on right) otherwise matching v3:
-Potential addition of spot color variation to the $5 chip, otherwise matching v1:
That’s all I have for now, but there will be more to follow! Please let me know if I can provide better images or anything else to help show the potential variants.
Thanks for chiming in @EmptyPocs ! Can you tell whether the button has a glossy or matte finish, and whether or not the printing is aligned between the front and back in any way? That would set straight in my mind which button(s) came from the group buys. It sounds like you're saying that both group buys had the same finish. Is that correct?
I just noticed something about the three buttons I purchased from Sidepot in 2013. The printing on the button is aligned between the sides such that if you spin it like you might spin a coin or a top with the design pointing up, the design faces the same direction on both sides. Since all three are this way, I do not think it is a coincidence. The seven I purchased in 2015 with the white ring do not share this feature. The printing on the glossy buttons is not aligned front to back either. The printing on the darkest button I have is aligned such that if you hold it on the sides and spin it, like a rotisserie, the design always faces up when it's facing you (assuming you started it facing up). My sample size is one, so it could be random, but it is perfectly aligned. The medium darkness button has no alignment. I'm now convinced that there are at least four variations of the dealer buttons, probably five. They are:
- Matte, darkest colors, aligned to spin on horizontal axis, unknown origin, pending input from @EmptyPocs, top left
- Glossy, second darkest colors, unaligned, unknown origin, pending input from @EmptyPocs, top middle
- Matte, medium darkness, no alignment, unknown origin, top right
- Matte, lightest colors, aligned to spin on vertical axis, purchased from Sidepot in 2013, bottom left
- Matte, lightest colors, no alignment, white ring, purchased from Sidepot in 2015, bottom right
OP
OP
This is a good catch! I think your chips are actually v3. It is my mistake.
The data comprising the gallery is stored in a large JSON file which went through a few revisions when it was initially being developed. One of those was to group the clay color values together in the UI, which I also reflected in the data. I moved the 'clay notes' field to separate it from the 'clay color' fields, but failed to make this change for $500 v3. So the $500 v3 is actually designated as over diameter already, but this is not reflected in the current gallery UI. It'll be fixed in the next update.
It turns out I was storing the dealer button I got from EmptyPocs separately with his custom chip. The dealer button appears to be the glossy type, which we now know came from the group buys. I assume that the others came from Sidepot directly, but I can only be 100% certain about the ones I bought in 2013 and 2015.
This is where we are:
This is where we are:
- Matte, darkest colors, aligned to spin on horizontal axis, unknown origin, top left in my previous post
- Glossy, second darkest colors, unaligned, from 2006 and 2008 group buys on CT, top middle in my previous post
- Matte, medium darkness, unaligned, unknown origin, top right in my previous post
- Matte, lightest colors, aligned to spin on vertical axis, purchased from Sidepot in 2013, bottom left in my previous post
- Matte, lightest colors, unaligned, white ring, purchased from Sidepot in 2015, bottom right in my previous post
I have glossy. These had to be from the 1st group buy as I do not remember a 2nd buy or the sidepot releases.
I believe Palm Imports made those, as well as my similar DeadWood buttons.
I believe Palm Imports made those, as well as my similar DeadWood buttons.
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According to this link (https://web.archive.org/web/2009030...ege-paulson-noir-dealer-button-group-buy.html), you ran a second group buy in 2008. Your post also talks about the second group buy button being a matte finish like the first one, but the buttons we have are glossy. The photo from the first group buy really looks like a matte finish to me though. Perhaps the second group buy wound up being glossy, and the first was matte? Not all of the pages in that thread were archived, so I don't know what the discussion was like once they showed up. At any rate, over 15 years after the first group buy, I want to offer my thanks to you for taking the initiative to get these made!
My best guesses:
- Matte, darkest colors, aligned to spin on horizontal axis, from 2006 group buy on CT?, top left in my dealer button family post
- Glossy, second darkest colors, unaligned, from 2008 group buy on CT?, top middle in my dealer button family post
- Matte, medium darkness, unaligned, unknown origin, top right in my dealer button family post
- Matte, lightest colors, aligned to spin on vertical axis, purchased from Sidepot in 2013, bottom left in my dealer button family post
- Matte, lightest colors, unaligned, white ring, purchased from Sidepot in 2015, bottom right in my dealer button family post
On a different Protégé related note, I came across these oddities when looking through my BCC color samples last night. The inlay used on these sun mold chips (bottom left and bottom right) don't match any of the $1k inlays that went to production as far as I can tell:
Who knows what sort of other one-offs could be out there?
ThinkingFold
Flush
I can only guess why BCC would make a sun mold chip using an apparently rejected Protégé inlay design and a chip design that matches one of Michael's HPC promotional chips. Perhaps they did it to create the color samples using existing unfinished blanks, but I'm not sure why you'd bother adding an inlay:
I hope that's a false positive, but I do recall that CT had security issues now and then. Maybe that's why it gets blocked? Here's a screen cap of what that link shows:
@Joe Harris I have an update regarding the "v3" dealer button. I found another button in a case where I used to keep some Protégé chips. It's a match for v3, but it's not aligned at all. The other v3 I have must only be coincidentally aligned to rotate horizontally.
I was looking for some different photos last week when I stumbled across these old Protégé (Protege) pics. That's the case (and dealer button) I mentioned above. These pics are a little over 11 years old, so my memory may not be 100%, but it seems that the $5s were hard to come by secondhand even back then. I couldn't afford the pricey new chips at ~$1.39 each, but I could find lightly used chips in the classifieds for ~$1 each. Sure, they cost more than the JB/CDI '05 chips that could be found lightly used for $0.75 each, but I liked these much better. I know that on at least one occasion I used these chips for two tables at once. One table played .50/1 NLHE and the other played .25/.50 NLHE. The $2s were wildly popular with everyone except for one guy who liked to align edgespots in his stack. The edgespots with the same color but different widths apparently made that more difficult. For the record, my sets now have much better breakdowns of denominations, but at the time my options were don't play with them or deal with $.25/.50/1/2/2.5/20 being used together. Nobody seemed to mind, and they all loved the chips.
I still plan to drag my current set out for photos when I get the opportunity, but since I found these I figured I would share:
I still plan to drag my current set out for photos when I get the opportunity, but since I found these I figured I would share:
Lovely! Those snappers are amazing in person 
OP
OP
I haven't gotten all the Protege out for group photos in a while. So today I had a wild hair and decided to reset the clock.
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The non denominational set.
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The whatever-stakes-you-want cash set.
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The Tournament Set.
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3's a crowd but it's my kind of crowd.
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The non denominational set.
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The whatever-stakes-you-want cash set.
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The Tournament Set.
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3's a crowd but it's my kind of crowd.
utgtrash
Straight
i have a huge protege set but this thing is MASSIVE!
pics!
utgtrash
Straight
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