[jojobinks]

11.5 Slug-weighted Plastic Chips

Manufacturer: Chinese Imports (varies greatly)
Retailer(s): Countless, including 5star ebay
Average Price: Around 10 cents
Material: Plastic with metal insert for weight
Member Review by: Jojobinks

These babies are the baseline. They're the cheapest and most common 11.5g chip there is. Although they are constantly bashed on forums like this, they aren't that bad.

Price

Fairly cheap. The tend to sell for about $50 per 500 in your standard ebay auction. Be careful when searching, by the way; many sellers sell for prices under $10, but will include a large shipping cost.

Feel

Not so good. They're slick and difficult to shuffle. This varies, however, by manufacturer. I’ve played with some of these that were slippery but reasonable; I’ve played with some that were nearly impossible to handle too. They have good heft to them (11.5 g, dood!), which is a good point.

Stacking

This is the dices' weakest point. If you play on a padded table, 20 high is dangerous with these babies. If you play on a hard table, they still wobble more than any other chip you'll ever own, and stacks of 40 or more are, while not impossible, not functional.

Sound

Metallic. Not good. They clink, in a pitch way higher than clay/ceramic.

Looks

I don't find them to be so bad. They have edgespots, although all white. The colors are fine and plentiful at ten choices, and they don't get dirty. In fact, over time these chips should look exactly the same unlike high end chips, which will wear over time. The bad news is that if you ever add to your collection of these, it’s very possible the chips you add-on won’t look the same. They’re made by several manufacturers, and word is that color and quality vary greatly.

Security/Originality

The worst. These are the absolutely most common chip in America (the world?). If security is an issue for you, get better, more expensive chips. They can be hotstamped, if you like that sort of thing. Of course that will bump the price, which is probably the reason you would decide to go with these in the first place. I've heard and seen that people have done custom labels with dice chips, but the centers are not recessed. The lifespan on the labels can't be good, and it would make them stack in unevenly and not fit in tight racks.

Durability

Superior. I’ve played these a lot (not the use a casino chip might get; more like play twice a week) for two years, and they show no wear at all. They don’t get dirty, they don’t soften up, they don’t lose color, they don’t break, they don’t warp. They don’t do anything but look and feel exactly how they did when you got them. And that’s not so bad. As cheap as these chips are, one might expect to hear some much worse things.

Reviewers Comments

Bottom line: I'm realistic; you're on this site because you like chips. Otherwise you'd be elsewhere reading about someone's bad beats, or asking for the release date of HOH2. Therefore, you probably are thinking about buying some nice chips. These chips are the gateway, however, and I recommend them to anyone that's just getting started with their home game. There's a reason why all the noobs that buy these love them; they're pretty cool. Just not as cool, by a long shot, as any chip that's in the 50 cent-$1+ range.

1/17/2006 edit: I don't recommend these chips anymore, and haven't since I figured out how sweet the faux clays are. There's really no reason to pay $50 for dice when you can get better chips for less. The faux's won't be around for ever (or even in a year from now, b/c they've been discontinued). But the more samples I got this year, the harder it is for me to make even the qualified recommendation I made in this review last spring. .

Chip Pictures