For my self, I'd have to sat that I am a chip collector. Since the early 1990's I started collecting "Sets" and didn't even realize there was such a thing as chip collectors as I know it today! I grew up with a relative who was in the industry, an uncle that ran casinos in Cuba and moved back to the states in the '50's when that crashed down. He started at the El Rancho upon his return and landed as the Casino VP at the Riviera. My interest in the "Vegas" lifestyle bit me at a young age when my parents would take us to Vegas to visit them and even at 12 the little round clay discs peaked my interest. I would sneak a chip or 2 from the Rivi and thought they were so cool. (Wish I had kifed some more! like $100's)
As time went on and I came of age 21 and could finally participate in this thing called gambling I think it was more about a big stack of chips in hand than what the values were in money (Sickness).
Some friends and I were enthralled with craps at the time and we would plot trips to Vegas to play and decided to "practice" before going to clean the casino out of their chips at the craps table, little did we know, that wasn't a thing! I decided to look for some chips that we could play with at our practice craps table and I discovered the diamond mold solids, wow, were these nice chips, just like the real ones in Vegas!!! ( ), and like 15 cents a piece, (1987'ish) until we discovered the WTHC chips in Vegas' Paulson store in the early 1990's!
Holy cow boys! Look at these chips, they're the real deal! Inlays, a Vegas molding with the Hat and canes, bright colors, WOW! I had to have a big set of these and get home and build a craps table!!! But wait, these things are 95 cents a chip!!! 95 damn cents a chip!!! I scarped together $1400 dollars over a year to prepare for this trip to clean out the casino and now Id have to part with almost $1000 of it to buy chips that I couldn't cash in! but man o man they were cool! Well, I did it! I was pumped! I owned a set of real casino grade casino chips, lost all the other money I had in our attempt to clean out the house! But I had that set! a real set of casino grade chips to play games at home! This was the unknowing beginning of me becoming a sets collector.
Over the years I found myself always in search of other "cool" chips, you know, the next best shiny object of interest! It was the CDI 98's, but it was always an objective to have a real set of chips from a real casino and to me that was pretty much what some now call "unobtainium" as who would ever pay $5 damn dollars a chip for $5's?? much less 25's 100's or heck 500's or 1000's??
As life took over and work at the family business and marriage with kids took front stage "chipping" went to the way back of the line and only resurfaced after each trip to Vegas but was short lived and went back to the end of the priority list for years.
With the birth of the internet and web sites I found my self usually drawn to sites like Gamblers General store and chip sellers who all had the same things, dice chips, WTHC, CDI and other Paulson chips with crazy denoms like 10,000, 50,000, 100,000!! well those are useless! (after all, murdering chips wasn't even a thing then). After a time (so odd that I never discovered SpinettisGaming back then). Well I had chips, lots of them including coin inlay chips, stacks and stacks! I should have identified the sickness then!
Fast forward to the late 2000's and a site called Poker Chip Forum popped up and that was it, I was hooked and identified the sickness!! Chippers were such cool cats! I made some good friends and some, well, shall we call them rivals? strong personalities? jerks? or even what I had seen called "AssHats", I suppose that I fell into each at times! All this boring text leads me to this question after thousands of characters of text and discussions with so many types of collectors, who does this crazy shit???
My initial reflections say we have:
The Singles collector:
The Sets collector:
The Chip Dealer with a collection of his own.
The chip dealer who buys and sells for profit. (doesn't really collect)
The Profiteer, or as some may call "Flipper" (may or may not collect)
The Fleecer, ( a sub set of the profiteer)
The hoarder
And last but not least:
The Whorder! ( this is self explanatory and encompasses the traits of the Profiteer, the fleecer, and usually the AssHat)
As time went on and I came of age 21 and could finally participate in this thing called gambling I think it was more about a big stack of chips in hand than what the values were in money (Sickness).
Some friends and I were enthralled with craps at the time and we would plot trips to Vegas to play and decided to "practice" before going to clean the casino out of their chips at the craps table, little did we know, that wasn't a thing! I decided to look for some chips that we could play with at our practice craps table and I discovered the diamond mold solids, wow, were these nice chips, just like the real ones in Vegas!!! ( ), and like 15 cents a piece, (1987'ish) until we discovered the WTHC chips in Vegas' Paulson store in the early 1990's!
Holy cow boys! Look at these chips, they're the real deal! Inlays, a Vegas molding with the Hat and canes, bright colors, WOW! I had to have a big set of these and get home and build a craps table!!! But wait, these things are 95 cents a chip!!! 95 damn cents a chip!!! I scarped together $1400 dollars over a year to prepare for this trip to clean out the casino and now Id have to part with almost $1000 of it to buy chips that I couldn't cash in! but man o man they were cool! Well, I did it! I was pumped! I owned a set of real casino grade casino chips, lost all the other money I had in our attempt to clean out the house! But I had that set! a real set of casino grade chips to play games at home! This was the unknowing beginning of me becoming a sets collector.
Over the years I found myself always in search of other "cool" chips, you know, the next best shiny object of interest! It was the CDI 98's, but it was always an objective to have a real set of chips from a real casino and to me that was pretty much what some now call "unobtainium" as who would ever pay $5 damn dollars a chip for $5's?? much less 25's 100's or heck 500's or 1000's??
As life took over and work at the family business and marriage with kids took front stage "chipping" went to the way back of the line and only resurfaced after each trip to Vegas but was short lived and went back to the end of the priority list for years.
With the birth of the internet and web sites I found my self usually drawn to sites like Gamblers General store and chip sellers who all had the same things, dice chips, WTHC, CDI and other Paulson chips with crazy denoms like 10,000, 50,000, 100,000!! well those are useless! (after all, murdering chips wasn't even a thing then). After a time (so odd that I never discovered SpinettisGaming back then). Well I had chips, lots of them including coin inlay chips, stacks and stacks! I should have identified the sickness then!
Fast forward to the late 2000's and a site called Poker Chip Forum popped up and that was it, I was hooked and identified the sickness!! Chippers were such cool cats! I made some good friends and some, well, shall we call them rivals? strong personalities? jerks? or even what I had seen called "AssHats", I suppose that I fell into each at times! All this boring text leads me to this question after thousands of characters of text and discussions with so many types of collectors, who does this crazy shit???
My initial reflections say we have:
The Singles collector:
The Sets collector:
The Chip Dealer with a collection of his own.
The chip dealer who buys and sells for profit. (doesn't really collect)
The Profiteer, or as some may call "Flipper" (may or may not collect)
The Fleecer, ( a sub set of the profiteer)
The hoarder
And last but not least:
The Whorder! ( this is self explanatory and encompasses the traits of the Profiteer, the fleecer, and usually the AssHat)