Neil,
Just wanted to let you know that I am pursuing this further. I've visited the website link you provided and I can see that the Emperor Group includes three casinos. Two are land based and one cruise ship. One is in the Replublic of North Korea, one is in Hong Kong and the ship sets sail from Hong Kong.
I have asked thechipboard people if any of them are familiar with any of these operations and do they have chips or scans. I know that several of the Chip Board participants have been to Hong Kong, and I believe one just returned several days ago. Hopefully there will be some info there.
With respect to the $5 "Emperor" chip... I've not re-read my earlier post, but I don't think I called the chip a "fantasy" chip. However, many chips that are in fact made for a casino, but never get devlivered, or otherwise used in a casino and then end up oin the marketplace, are often called fantasy chips. Calling them "fanatsy" chips is much easier than saying: "chips made for a casino but never delivered or used at the casino".
I am not sure where the idea that Paul-Son made these on their own initiative, but if that impression came from me, I will say here that I don't think that is what happened. Nor do I believe that Paul-Son made these for sale out of their retail stores as home poker chips. I believe that Paul-Son made these for a casino operation and for whatever reason(s) the ones that Mike Spinetti acquired were never closer to North Korea than Las Vegas (or the Paul-Son factory in Mexico).
I would suspect, and this is just speculation mind you, that Paul-Son made the chips by a agreement with the casino, but after they were made and before they were delivered, the casino would not or could not take possession of the chips. Time and time again we have seen where a chip fails the camera test, or in actual use the dealers struggle with it (a brown $5 in a world of red $5's). Or how about the possibility that the North Korean hosts did not appreciate the American associated dollar symbol. Is it possible that the Asian players had a problem with the color, the number of inserts, maybe the crown. Perhaps they were intended to be a back-up set to the $5, but...? For any of these reasons, or others, I again suspect that the chips were a White Elephant to Paul-Son and they dumped them.
Being that they were Paul-Son H&C chips, they commanded a certain degree of quality recognition, which made them marketable. For whatever the reason(s) were that caused the delivery to not be made, it would appear that Paul-Son did not need to cancel the chips and they were released without hot-stamping, drilling or notching.
Hopefully we will learn more. However, it is unlikely that we will learn anything that will change the current value of these chips.
Jim
Linear Mode
