Fake chips from Real Producers!

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The Chip Spa

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Some singles collectors have reached out asking about Hat and Cane chips they've never seen and about their origin. Chips such as..........
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As we know the answer is different in each case but share a common theme, They are fantasy sets produced by Angel/Paulson/GPI, no not commercially for sale to the public, produced unknowingly (or otherwise) by Angel/GPI for individuals who either have inside contacts in the industry and have duped the company into creating them either knowingly or unknowingly by GPI, my guess is the latter. GPI is in business to make and sell chips and I think when they see an order for 50,000 or 100,000 or even larger they simply close their eyes and make em and collect their fee.

The financiers/Creators of the productions used to try and be very secretive about the chips referred to as NAGB (Not a group Buy) chips and came off as the reason was because GPI didn't sell to the public anymore and they wanted custom sets but looking at the history of these productions the motive is very obvious, profit. Many of these sets, some as old as 5 or 6 years (Guess, not looking that deep) are still being sold/traded in brand new unplayed condition so sets being made to be played with in poker games is simply a way to cover the profit scheme IMO.

The chips are pretty and bright, very flashy unlike most REAL casino chips and the later productions have been shown to be very lightweight and even warped in the case of the hot stamps right from production.

After production and the big show and suspense leading to their debut on the sales market, these chips usually splash down in the price range of $700 to well over $2000 per rack for chips produced for a mere $1.75 to around $3.00 per chip from GPI. I have been shown invoices from GPI shared by the creators or their "partners" that verify this. Boy when the data leaks out regarding this information they get pissed and drama usually rears its head! In the latest NAGB adventure which was initially portrayed to some to be a way to "reset" the prices on these type of chips back to a reasonable, non gouging level, and that they would be offered in abundance to anyone wanting them, so as to apparently "break the market" on the profiteers that preceded them, teaching the creators a "lesson", while an admirable way to get folks on board it appeared to me to be none of those things, the chips came out in public for sale in sets and then later individual racks and only available if you were an "original" buyer of the first sets sold. The system used to decide who was able to purchase was supposedly a "lottery draw", you put your order in on a google form and waited to see if you were drawn and allowed to buy, and not at resetting prices, while the sets were around $6-$9 per chip, the individual racks were $600 to $1500 a rack for the $3 cost chips, so much for the white knight of chipping. If you put in for a set the notification came via a payment request, if you didn't get awarded the privilege you simply went unanswered and watched the mail thread at PCF.

Usually in these group buys several folks are recruited to join in the buy to help finance the chips and is some kind of secret society until the chips are produced. I've heard but never seen NDA's which in the beginning were rumored to be signed by the "Partners" to maintain secrecy.

As goes chippers and chipping I've also watched as the drama unfolds as the chips are debued and one or more partners are slighted, charged more than others or even banished from the buy all together, the disgruntled partner will usually go to the forums and out what they know or air some kind of grievance regarding the deal creating even furthur drama, it's fun but sometimes hard to watch.

While all the details are out there to see in bits and pieces of threads on the forums its a lot of work to find but if you have time you can go find it all assuming admins and mods haven't removed or scrubbed the threads, while I write this in response to questions asked I'm not willing or have the time to consolidate all the drama and information in this post. If you want to post references to this stuff here feel free as this is a free speech forum, free of advertising and monetization.

Again I wanted to provide a brief synopsis of these chips as many of you have asked. I am not an expert on the chips nor claim to be just passing a bit of info I have learned along the journey.
 
thanks for the numbers..as an economist at my day job, you are buying at $200 a rack...ish...and selling at say 1k...5x ish, without any inventory to keep (I assume this sell out quickly) and a near certainty that they will sell out. So aside from the ethics...which is a big "aside", we should be getting more people doing this if they can...beats any kind of "sell on amazon" side hustle videos I see.
 
Not sure it is insight so much as jealousy...
Understood! Some faction of that too!!!! But the insite was referring to the ethics side. But hey it must be ethical as there was buyers and they all sold sooooo there's that! Prolly a bit o buyers remorse if someone gets one past the GPI goalie again with a supply so large and the true intention of correcting the market. In the end this stuff is ALL ABOUT PROFITS and little or NOTHING to do with chipping even though good chippers are involved.

A 10.5gr pick hobson TRK in uncirculated condition from a real casino bringing 5 - 7$ and an unlimited supply of new unleaded 7.5g - 9g Paulsons going upwards of 20$ baffles me.
 
After production and the big show and suspense leading to their debut on the sales market, these chips usually splash down in the price range of $700 to well over $2000 per rack for chips produced for a mere $1.75 to around $3.00 per chip from GPI. I have been shown invoices from GPI shared by the creators or their "partners" that verify this
Post the invoices. Let evidence be the one that verifies the claims and not stories.
 
Post the invoices. Let evidence be the one that verifies the claims and not stories.
Well they're out there on PCF if they haven't been scrubbed.... But they were shown to me so I've seen them, you can choose to not believe me But I'm not the only one.... but a sure sign of pricing is that a Casino wouldn't pay much more than a couple bucks if that for chips especially ones!
 
Chipco, which I know gets little love with set people, went bankrupt for many reasons, but one was their production of any chip for anybody. They forgot, as GPI has said, that they are making casino currency. Just giving some context here.
 
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Ill look about for a while and see what i can see..... This excerpt from 2014
 
Well they're out there on PCF if they haven't been scrubbed.... But they were shown to me so I've seen them, you can choose to not believe me But I'm not the only one.... but a sure sign of pricing is that a Casino wouldn't pay much more than a couple bucks if that for chips especially ones!

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Ill look about for a while and see what i can see..... This excerpt from 2014

Prices for almost everything have gone up significantly since the dates of these posts.

I get that is easy and almost natural to make assumptions about what prices may or may not be but that all requires speculation. We are talking about TP/RPC chips here so they only invoices that are relevant the ones for those respective buys.

FYI. I have zero involvement in either buy. Im just a spectator. All im interested is the actual truth and actual evidence if we are going to talk about this subject matter. I appreciate and respect that you are trying to run things we a higher level of transparency around here but these conversations still feel the same with the same level of conjecture and vitriol.



The poster behind the handle would certainly know 100%
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this poster is definitely not a source of truth. Been caught out 1 too many times for my liking telling porkies.
 
Prices for almost everything have gone up significantly since the dates of these posts.

I get that is easy and almost natural to make assumptions about what prices may or may not be but that all requires speculation. We are talking about TP/RPC chips here so they only invoices that are relevant the ones for those respective buys.

FYI. I have zero involvement in either buy. Im just a spectator. All im interested is the actual truth and actual evidence if we are going to talk about this subject matter. I appreciate and respect that you are trying to run things we a higher level of transparency around here but these conversations still feel the same with the same level of conjecture and vitriol.




this poster is definitely not a source of truth. Been caught out 1 too many times for my liking telling porkies.
No Vitriol intended here, EVER, WW may be known to tell stories, I don't know, but he knows the deal for sure on RPC. Info recently came to me via a current California card room owner who bought regularly from GPI that chip prices are hovering around $2. to $3. Top for 39mm chips. I have no reason to believe they would lie they don't know chipping, PCF, PCDC or anything about the hobby. So let's just call it $3 a chip if it matters.

I know the Tiger buyer could simply divulge the cost but there's no incentive for him to do so. maybe embarrassed by the markup. He won't release the true number of chips produced either which IMO, and only MO is contrary to me buying them, as real chips from real casinos numbers are available in some instances and all the other NAGB numbers are out on PCF so why not these? Speculation is all there is on these chips (TP) and pricing is in the ball park, I'd bet a dollar to a doughnut they were less than $3 after all fees etc., again, if it matters.

I don't want to divulge the parties who spoke the prices on RPC's but it too was varying between $2-$3. Yes transparency would be good so people can decide to buy/not buy but no one must really care because they all sold. I was all in that the rumor was $5-$6 a chip with my assumption of cost, I even ordered, or requested the honor of ordering a set, but when I learned some of the weights and prices pushing $15 a chip and the secretive nature of how many were out there I was out, a choice and had I been sent a request for $$ I would have declined and let someone else take that set.

This is less to me than the margins on the chips and who made it, in fact I really care less. I told a short story of what the NAGB chips were and a bit of what they cause the PCF community each time it happens. I posted because some of the singles folks at CB asked about it not to cause conjecture and vitriol but the mere discussion of these chips bring that out in some when mentioned or speculated about. Hey, if you find information feel free to share it here I'm sure like you there's others that are interested. There is always someone in these deals who releases information for one reason or another..... those threads are over at PCF also if you're interested enough to sift through them.

I don't think transparency in cost or numbers would have affected sales of these NAGB chips at all, they would all sell so my point is why not be transparent? If it is only actual evidence you seek to further a discussion about it I would suggest you ask the originators themselves but I think you won't get far. I believe after years of spectating those buys and speaking to people who know actual pricing in the real world is enough circumstantial evidence, it's not a trial after all.

Anyway I say again the post was to briefly answer questions from the other side of the Sets/Singles divide and to put another board in the bridge to connect them instead of having Us vs. Them continue as is. Maybe we need a seperate thread for people telling porkies! I like that, porkies!
 
We'll see if I really care to prove the sky is blue or that clouds float in the sky, Maybe I'll float a "Bounty Offer" for GPI invoices at PCF!!! Yet another chance to profit from the NAGB!!! :coffee::unsure::devilish:

Like a tell me what you have and we'll negotiate! You can remain anonymous and scratch identifying info from the image. hahaha Do I really care that much? or do i give them the ULTRA high assumption of $3 a chip? Prolly the latter!
 
Not sure it is insight so much as jealousy...
I doubt it, I don’t think most are “jealous” for the “honor” to line other people’s pockets buying what is in essence bright-colored, cheap feeling home poker set chips.

For reference - I too was mesmerized by the bright colors and bought a sample set of one of the NAGBs. Upon receiving them, A) they simply felt light and cheap (realized i certainly prefer older heavy chips), and B) I couldn’t understand or justify the cost as I could acquire real casino chips with real history for far less.
 
I also must have mistook the jealousy part, was that referring to "ME" being jealous? and of what exactly? not pursuing a GPI buy or owning the NAGB chips @jhelik ? Because at pushing 70K casino chips I'm certainly not jealous. If it's the profits you're suggesting, I applaud the creators for extracting that money, BRAVO, but my accounts are fine without gouging folks of their hard earned money, especially at times like these for fantasy chip sets that have no casino connections or valuable history.
 
I doubt it, I don’t think most are “jealous” for the “honor” to line other people’s pockets buying what is in essence bright-colored, cheap feeling home poker set chips.

For reference - I too was mesmerized by the bright colors and bought a sample set of one of the NAGBs. Upon receiving them, A) they simply felt light and cheap (realized i certainly prefer older heavy chips), and B) I couldn’t understand or justify the cost as I could acquire real casino chips with real history for far less.
It was a comment about "academic" jealousy of something that can be sold for 3x, 4x, 5x costs with almost no risk. If I truly wanted to do this, i guess I would.
 
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