Added: 11/12/2005 |
Clay poker chips as the most valuableThe first casinos were absolutely different from modern grand casinos, you would never recognize them. Only a few tables located in the dark back of a restaurant. Rude gangsters with guns and all that. The chips were uncommon and rare thing. Those hard days were unlike ours, a wide variety of chip types available today, with the most common clay or composite poker chips and inexpensive plastic ones.
Chips to casinos are their profit. To the gamblers they are the signs of a victory or defeat. But the collectors keep carefully these valuable pieces of history and pride.
Poker chips are the essential part of poker. In the end of the poker game, they are the measure of one's success. Poker chips come in a variety of styles, colors and weights and nearly every part of a chip has its own meaning.
The chips are differentiated by a few basic elements. Manufacturers put their logos and dates on the mold, the edge of the chip. It is easy to define denomination according to the edge spots or coloured inserts. Chip makers experimented much with design, changing size and shape of the inlay, they put the casino logo and other pictures there.
But in early poker games when chips were not invented yet, coins and pieces of gold were used in table games. After a while chips were replaced by coins and small particles of gold. They appeared to be more convenient in a game. The first chips were quite simple and made from wood and paper, ivory, clay or bone. But these simple chips became a problem, they were easy to forge and often people used their own handmade valueless chips.
Manufacturers anxious with this problem began to develop chips with different designs, colours, shapes, logos, pictures etc... Sometimes in the casinos different types of chips were used and every gambler received the unique pack of chips in hands. The most valuable chips were handmade and had the initials, pictures of flowers, animals.
Since 1880's the production of clay poker chips started and till the middle of the 20th century there were only few companies. The new wave of chip designs grew fast, there was an uncountable number of designs from which to choose: Tri-colour chips, Pro 13gm chips, Nevada Jacks, Paulson poker chips etc... Each had a snap inside of them. Three coloured chips were named Tri-colour chips. There were professional chips and they were the heaviest clay poker chips. Nevada Jacks are the most popular and famous with the long history. Paulson chips were used in James Bond movie so they are called James Bond Paulson Poker Chips.
You need to know that common clay poker chips are not made of clay. Most are made from the high-quality plastic and have a metal or sometimes resin insert to give them the extra weight. However, some clay poker chips are made from clay composite - and these are considered the best of the best.
U.S. Playing Card Company became famous of its clay composition poker chips, they were and are the most expensive ones. These were highly collectible "Crest & Seal" series, the real titbit for all chip collectors, which had a Seal over the surface.
For low-limit home poker, plastic sets were used and till now they continue to be popular. They are quite good, nice but they lack the power of the professional ones.
Only those made for casinos and large poker rooms are chips of the best quality, either injection molded or clay composite poker chips.
Poker chip collecting is a popular hobby for many poker players nowadays. The most exciting thing in chip collecting is the different ways of getting them. Most poker chip collectors start their hobby with one or two forgotten chips in a pocket. As the amount of souvenirs from different vacations and casinos grows, the collector's curiosity become enormously high about different styles, designs of chips that worth collecting.
Millions of people gamble everyday and the gamble army grows at a great rate. And you know, the chips collecting hobby keeps getting bigger and bigger.
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