Economical Chip Storage

When I started collecting chips, I stored them by putting each chip into a plastic 2x2 inch "flip". Then, I purchased plastic sheets with pockets to hold 20 of these flips and placed them into 3-ring binders. Pretty soon, I had almost a dozen binders and they were crowding out the books on the bookshelves in our home office.

In the early years of my collecting, I found that I pulled binders off the shelf fairly often to check to see if I had a particular chip, or to insert a new purchase. I filed my chips alphabetically, by casino name, and one of the problems using the binders is that I would have to shift chips around periodically when I needed to insert a new chip. I recently decided to do away with binders and remove the clutter from my bookshelves, while finding an easier way to file chips.

I wanted to file my chips in boxes or drawers, each chip still contained in a flip. I also wanted some type of drawer unit that would fit on a shelf underneath a computer table I have next to my desk, with only 13 inches of clearance. I looked at some metal drawer cabinets at The Container Store that would work, but the price was right around $100. I wanted something cheaper to start out with to see if I would be happy with this filing system.

I picked up a plastic 3 drawer storage unit at Wal-Mart for either 8 or 12 bucks (I forget). I cut some 1-3/4 inch strips to separate rows of chips from some pieces of 3/32" stiff black plastic that Cassidy Frames ships with their chip frame inserts.
Each drawer holds about 450-475 chips in double pocket plastic flips. Inside dimensions of drawers are 12 inches wide by about 12-3/4 inches deep by a little less than 2-1/2 tall.

This particular unit is made by Sterlite and seems pretty stable, although I don't have all three drawers full yet. They make a smaller unit with drawers 8-1/2 wide and 11 deep, but it doesn't seem as strong.

One Man's Clutter...

Every so often, someone will make a post on The Chip Board complaining about what other people are posting on The Chip Board. It's usually prompted by a flame war over politics or something entirely unrelated to collecting casino chips. The poster will usually proclaim something like "Let's get back to chip collecting!!" and urge the moderator, Greg Susong to start filtering out postings that aren't strictly chip-related.

This complaining post is always met with a response that the board is open to discussions of any subject, an invitation to read Greg's message to new users, and advice to simply skip over posts that don't seem to be chip-related: If you don't like it, don't read it.

Having seen these complaining posts made repeatedly, and knowing what responses they bring, I've refrained from making my own post about something on The Chip Board that's been bothering me lately. I know I'll come off as a whiner here, but this is my forum, and if I can't whine here, where can I?

(PLEASE: If you want to rake me over the coals for my opinions expressed here, please do it here by posting a response at the end of this message. DON'T make a post about it on The Chip Board as I don't want to contribute to the clutter there.)

Okay, here's my whine: My problem isn't with discussions that aren't chip-related. In fact, it's with postings that ARE chip-related, but just not anything I think is worth taking up space on the board.

My problem is with "Your personal chip arrived" postings.

Over the past year, the creation and trading of personal chips has become one of the main focuses of the discussions on the board. As a collector who has decided NOT to have a personal chip made (yet), I sometimes skip over the messages soliciting trades of personal chips. I have no problem with people posting pictures of their personal chips and thanking whoever helped them design the chip and have it created. I think that's entirely appropriate, and I always enjoy seeing them. I also have no problem with people soliciting trades of personal chips. The Chip Board is the only logical place to do that.

However, once two collectors have made their initial contact by e-mail and agreed to trade personal chips, why do the rest of the readers of the board need to be informed of the progress of the mailing and delivery? There are messages on almost a daily basis proclaiming something to the effect of "Hey Bob, your personal chip arrived!" or "Thanks for the trade, Roger!"

Now, call me cranky, but if the two of you corresponded by e-mail to set up the trade, why can't you simply e-mail each other when the post office makes the delivery?

Each time I post a new topic on the board, I try to make it something that might interest other readers. I KNOW that readers of the board don't give a hoot what arrives in my mailbox each day, and I rarely tell them unless it's a casino chip I'm particularly proud to acquire. And in those cases, I always post a picture to share.

I know a lot of these postings are by relatively new collectors who are excited by anything chip-related that happens in their lives. I was the same way when I started out. Another reason I don't want to post this rant of mine on The Chip Board is it might discourage new collectors from posting and participating in the hobby. I don't want to do that. All I want is for them to maybe use e-mail a little more and stop using the board for their personal messaging service.

END OF RANT.

Large & Small Crown Chips

I fell in love with small crown chips made by the T.R. King Co. a couple of years ago when Doug Saito was holding an auction of the small crown collection of Hank Boss. As with most of Doug's auctions, he did an excellent catalog with lots of nice pictures. I liked the simple mold design, and something about it seemed older and more genuine than some of the more plentiful designs.

I started picking small crown chips up when I could, on eBay and at the annual CCGTCC convention. There are a lot of them around that can be had fairly inexpensively, since T.R. King continues to manufacture chips using the small crown mold, which they began using around 1950. Of course, many of the chips they manufacture are for home poker sets, as anybody can order from them, not just casinos.

T.R. King also manufactured a chip using what is referred to as the large crown mold from about 1938 to 1967. Although there are many of these chips around too, there don't seem to be as many as the small crowns. This means you'll expect to pay a little more for large crown chips. Many of the more desireable large crowns are older Nevada chips, including some from Las Vegas, and they can get quite expensive.

One great place to view some large crown chips is the home page of Richard Fellman, self-proclaimed "Large Crown Nut".