I figured since I haven't seen a thread about Joe's custom dealer buttons here I'd post one up as sort of a custom thread/review thread. If this should go in Poker Gear, admins feel free to move it, but I figured since it was custom it should go here.
So after being in the ASM queue I figured I'd need a button to match my set! I had seen some other threads with Joe's dealer buttons and after getting their printers set up right they looked pretty good! I had some reservations about custom ceramic buttons since the first custom printed buttons that came out were huge 5" coasters with actual cork-bottom that were called "buttons" for no reason. These were not particularly from Joe, but from a few vendors a couple years ago. I had purchased a few and wasn't pleased with either the print or the 10lb weight of the stupid things
I got in contact with a couple members who had these new 2" buttons from Joe and decided it was a great deal, so I got to work on the mockups right away. Mockups for the entire set can be seen
here, and this is the accomodating button I came up with:
Here's what came of the artwork.
Matte finish on the left, gloss finish on the right 
Size against an ASM 
Size against a standard Airtite 
Size against a standard acrylic button 
Print Quality: I wanted to mimic a standard etched 2.125" acrylic button for mine, so I chose a white background with a simple text of "Dealer", but I used the palm trees from my ASM inlays as a faded silhouette in the background. I chose not to have a rolling edge printed because of my idea of the plain dealer button. AFAIK these can be printed in full color and edges can be done, and they look stunning when done.
One thing to keep in mind is that printing these things can never be 100% perfect, but Joe gets pretty close! As you can see in the first picture, the matte button has a different edge margin of print than the gloss button on the right. However on the other side of either of these the print margin from the edge is different, as one of the trunks of the palm trees on the other side of the matte is all the way to the edge. I'm pretty sure this is just a byproduct of both my artwork submission and the printing process of ceramic. Joe can probably comment more on what causes this.
Another thing I noticed is that the matte image was slightly clearer print than the image printed on the gloss button. This is just due to the ink adhering to the actual material of the button in a different manner. It's not visible in the first picture and it's BARELY visible in person, but the difference is there.
Weight: I don't have a scale here but Joe's listed these as around 40 grams. They honestly don't feel that heavy but they're definitely heavier than a standard dealer button. I will say that it's because of the weight that the chip on the left side is there, it flung out of my hand by accident and knocked onto a hard floor
Price: Depending on how many buttons you buy, use or non-use of edge printing, and if you use different images on each side, these can range anywhere from $5 to $6.75 ea + shipping. These are definitely worth the few dollars!
So that's it! If the other people that experienced these buttons recently (and I say recently because of Joe's refinements to his machines) then feel free to chime in with either the good or the bad that you experienced with these. I love 'em!
. Also I think it would be a good idea for anyone who does ceramic of any kind not to run a specific object to the outside edge, say...like...a palm tree. With a full color to the edge though those things look fantastic! And yeah the Private Cardroom one does look like a different button.
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