Things I hate…

In terms of chips, there are certain things that get under my skin immediately.

All this is in the context of multiple chips used in games, not single collector chips, so take this rant with a grain of salt.

1. Wobbly chips. Chips that can’t sit like a stack of bricks when stacked in more than a twenty chip tall stack. I learned of this possibility the hard way. Bought a bunch of NCV chips, got them, and was quite happy because they looked absolutely spotless. No stains, no chips, dings, nothing. Uncirculated. But stack them up to twenty, hit the side of it with your finger, and all of a sudden, instant jello. They’re not inlaid chips, so it’s not a spinner issue. When I hold them up to a light source behind the stack in hand, I see light through the chips. The chips themselves are slightly warped, enough so that the stack is not stable. (I’m talking about my white Caesars Tahoe NCV’s) So, to sum up, wobbly chips.

2. Spinners. Chips that have something under their inlay that causes the chip to be unstable. The ability to spin is merely a tell tale sign. May be a subset to ‘wobbly chips’, but the cause is different.

3. Smooth inlay combined with RH&C mold. It makes for a very slippery chip, and therefore a very slippery stack. The Vineyard $2’s I used to have, slippery. Less edge, more smooth inlay, bingo, – ‘be careful around my stacks, buddy, you’re liable to knock them over with a sneeze’

4. Color variations. Cherries. Enough said. You can’t control what you find out there, and when you do find something you want to collect, it sometimes pays to buy more than you need for variation editing purposes. Costs more, yes, but when you obsess, hey, you need to create systems that let you obsess successfully.

5. Dried out chips. You know the ones. They’re ashy. They don’t respond to an oil bath. You rub them and rub them with oil, hoping to revive the smoothness you know is inherent to a casino Paulson. But NOTHING brings them back from that ashy, flaky look. And you curse whoever it was who abused the chips with a nasty scrubbing with a brillo pad or whatever the heck it was they used to get rid of the casino funk, because hey, not everyone knows about Diamond Chip Cleaner or not everyone cares. And you got a sorry stack of dried out funky chips that won’t come back from the dark side…