From what I have been able to research, the X mold was originally owned by a gambling supply distributor and dice manufacturer called White’s Club Room Equipment (Cincinnati, Ohio). They first show up in the Cincinnati directory in 1943 but may be older than that. They used the X, Dot, Diamond Square, and Lazy Diamond molds.
In 1952, Rigdon & Co. (Club Room Equipment) buys out White’s and Rigdon gets ownership of some of White’s molds. Rigdon dates back in Cincinnati to the 1940s, but 1952 is when they probably get ownership of the X-mold. They even move into White’s old factory and office.
Most of the above is from postings by Roy Klein, who is active on the ChipBoard, and has done a lot of research on the two companies. I think he might live in the area. Here is one of his excellent posts on the topic;
http://www.thechipboard.com/archives/archives.pl/bid/325/md/read/id/1538341
My impression is that the X-mold was mainly used by White’s between 1940 and 1952. Rigdon gets ownership of the mold, but it never shows up in their catalogs. The chips seem to have most often been used for illegal gambling in Ohio and Kentucky. When they show up, its often in Ohio, such as this chip that
@wolfpack found last year;
https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/old-compression-molds.60592/
Early chips would have been made by the
USPC Co. until 1947, and by the Burt Co. afterwards.
CPC, the descendent of the Burt company, no longer has the mold cups. Jim Blanchard in a post from 2001 explained that the mold was returned to Rigdon in 1982, who threw out the cups. From what I understand, Marion and Co. buys Rigdon in the 1980s, but Rigdon had already destroyed their and White's order records.
http://www.thechipboard.com/archive...sbj/chip-mold-question-or-having-trouble-dat/
Getting large quantities of virgin chips on any proprietary mold, such as the X mold, that never became a public open mold is quite the score. To prevent counterfeiting, they typically didn't let these get out. Nice chips.
