[KingZilla]

Dunes Commemorative "Pure Clay" Chips
Purchased from: Paulson Poker Chips, Paulson Clay Poker Chips For Your Home Poker Game
Price Paid: $5.99 for a sample set of 10 (available in larger sets @ 30-35¢ each).

I purchased a sample set of these fantastic looking chips with the intention of buying 1000, if they tested ok. Unfortunatly, these chips did not pass muster.

Pros:

• Weight: advertised as 9.5g
• Feel: Only "pro" here is that you can actually feel the Dunes mold.
• Stacking: They will stack evenly.
• Inlay: Very nice printing on the inlay with a very slight texture.
• Appearance: To me, these are the best looking chips for the price. An attempt was made to mimic shaped inlays by the printing technique. The pull it off reasonably well, but fail on the $500 chip.
• Price: About 30¢ per chip, purchased in sets. Again, very reasonable considering the classy appearance.
• Large selection of denominations, from 25¢ to $25,000.

Cons:

• Feel: Hard, slick plastic feel. Other than being able to feel "Dunes" molded into the chip, there is no "clay-like" feel to these at all.
• Stacking: As mentioned above, will stack evenly, but are too slick. Chip stacks will slide apart or fall easily.
• Although made as "Dunes Commerative" chips, the edge spot colors and designs are not even close, excepting the $100 chip.
• Jump in denom from $5,000 to $25,000: They should have gone ahead with a $10,000 chip as well.

Summary:
The original Dunes casino chips are my personal favorite. These chips capture SOME of that look with the inlay design and the house mold. I really like the looks of these chips. But as with other things in life, LOOKS aren't everything. These chips were a disappointment to me. I was expecting something closer to The Real McCoy. If they could find a different manufacture technique maybe the chips would handle better. I have seen NEXGEN chips with the CASINO mold and even though they are slugged, I have read they have a better feel and stack better than plastics. Perhaps on that platform, with more accurate edge spots (and "Dunes" instead of CASINO), these chips would have turned out better and cost just the same.