[Damon]

The original purpose of this thread was to solicit feedback on an idea that I had for my first set of custom chips from ASM. It has since evolved into a summary of my ordering experience with ASM. I will also post all the pics of the finished set in this thread once the chips arrive. Hopefully, it will be helpful to anyone interested in ordering custom clay chips from ASM.

It wasn't long after joining this site that I my eyes were bombarded with drool-inducing pics of various memebers' custom clay poker chips. Being a fellow chip-geek and consummate perfectionist, I found myself no longer satisfied my current 2 clay sets (Modern Clays by BCC and National Poker Series by Paulson) - which I thought were the mutts nuts when I first purchased them. I began dreaming of designing a custom cash set of my very own. I wanted a personalized chip with a German theme (b/c of my family's German heritage).

Through this site, I learned about different chip manufacturers, design tools like "The Chip Forge", and the importance of getting lots of samples for comparison beforehand. The two companies manufacturing small lots of customs at the time were Atlantic Standard Molding (ASM) and T.R. King. Neither Blue Chip Co. nor Paulson/GPI offered custom inlays & inserts. I decided to go with ASM and for my chips on the H-mold (which ties in perfectly with my last name).

ORDER TIMELINE (Key milestones appear in yellow text)

10/10/2006 – Placed order with Glenda & submitted artwork to Sandy for review.
10/12/2006 – Sandy replied saying artwork looked good, but requested smaller file size.
11/16/2006 – Send revised artwork to Sandy.
10/17/2006 – Received emailed artwork proofs from Sandy.
10/17/2006 – Gave my approval on final artwork & green light for production.
10/25/2006 – Phoned ASM to make last-minute spot change on $20 chip.
11/14/2006 – Received invoice from ASM. Paid in full. Glenda confirmed via email that chips have started production and that I am on schedule to have them by x-mas.
11/24/2006 - Phoned ASM and Glenda said chips are fully assembled and on their way to final press.
12/19/2006 - Received UPS tracking email. ASM sent them by UPS 2-Day. Chips will be delivered Thursday, 12/21. w00t!
12/21/2006 - THE'RE HERE!!!
TOTAL TIME FROM ORDER TO DELIVERY = 10 WEEKS!!!
** will post pics after the holiday madness **

FINAL MOCKUPS (created with Chip Forge)





BREAKDOWN

100 x .25
200 x 1
200 x 5
80 x 20
20 x 100

This breakdown will fill a 600-chip acrylic carrier and gives me $4825 in chips. Hopefully this breakdown will be versatile enough for NLHE games with up to 8 players and blinds of .25/.25, .50/1, and 1/2. I doubt that the $100's will ever see play (especially with $1600 in 20's) but I couldn't bring myself to order a set without a $100 chip.



I'd like to thank all those who provided their input during the design phase as well as those who have shared their own ordering experiences. This has gone much more smoothly than I had expected. It seems as though things are less hectic as ASM than they were immediately after the last group buy, and this is likely why my timeline is much shorter than that of those members who were part of that group buy. I'd imagine that a sudden influx of many small custom orders was at least partially responsible for the delays that many here experienced.

Will update this thread as soon as they ship.

- Damon

[jldecarlo]

It's hard to tell (It's easier when you put the inlay on a chip for reference), but I think the denom should be a bit larger as well as the top text. The bottom text - est. 2006 - is fine.

Otherwise, I think it will work fine.

L

[hachkc]

Definitely need to see it in context to a chip; H-mold I assume. Agree with everthing jldecarlo said.

[MacGrad]

Don't forget you're putting it on a 7/8" inlay -- I think, at that size, you're going to lose some of the finer design elements on the graphic.

Don't get me wrong: it looks good. But my first thought when I looked at it in detail was "Wow, some of those lines look thin right now, even with the design much bigger than it will be on the chip. Will everything show up properly at the proper scale?"

Keep it up, though... I think you may have a winner.

[A-Ro]

I love it...it's very similar to what I'm doing for a set of custom ceramics.

[babujit1]

It looks good but i agree with the above.
The text needs to be bigger, and the graphic has to be looked at at scale.
Print it at chip size and see how it looks.
Good luck

[Damon]

Originally Posted by jldecarlo

It's hard to tell (It's easier when you put the inlay on a chip for reference), but I think the denom should be a bit larger as well as the top text. The bottom text - est. 2006 - is fine.

Otherwise, I think it will work fine.

L

I'd love to make mock-ups of the inlay on the chips, only I don't know how. I'm using Photoshop Elements and the file is on a 2" canvas. The image itself is @ 600 dpi and is contained within a 7/8" circle, so it should fit on an inlay. I'm leaning towards the 7/8" printable inlay on the A-mold. I printed my artwork to scale and the text is readable, but could be larger. The font used for the denom is nearly 1/8" tall and is plenty readable as-is. I've got a couple of questions:

1. How do I get the inlay on my chip mock-ups? I have no clue.
2. Do I have to design 5 different inlays (one w/each denomination) to supply to ASM when I place the order?

Thanks. I'm starting to get more excited as actually placing the order gets closer.

[babujit1]

Originally Posted by Damon

1. How do I get the inlay on my chip mock-ups? I have no clue.
2. Do I have to design 5 different inlays (one w/each denomination) to supply to ASM when I place the order?

Thanks. I'm starting to get more excited as actually placing the order gets closer.

1. just a matter of getting a chip color mocked up then placing your inlay over it.
2. You just have to get it close and they will help you out with the rest.

[RTBrandy]

A warning from someone that has a very similar inlay....(me)...

while I love the h mold chip, I was a little surprised at the smaller size of the inlay and what it did for my design....

it's just a little smaller than I had expected....so be prepared..

Great start, though!

Brandy

[Damon]

I've mocked up the colors using chipforge, but I used the $20 Wynn inlay because I don't know how to get my inlay to work with chipforge. Is there some way to do that?