6/09: Placed order with Debbie at PC.com (Cathy was my first point of contact but she was away). I gave payment information at this time though I shouldn't get charged until ~2 weeks before shipping. I also got the contact information for Bob, the graphic guy, though he is out sick today. I shot Bob an e-mail giving him my mockups and asking some questions about formatting, resolution, and coloring.
6/10: Received word from Bob. He had the flu. I hope he feels better. He said that they use Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator, which is great because that's what my mockups were authored with. He stated that they use CMYK coloring and print at 150dpi, and that the "printable area" is 3/4" at this resolution for the 7/8" inlay.
This causes a huge problem. I designed the inlays to have the watermark extend to the absolute edge of the inlay (actually I figured I'd be printing over the edge of the die cut as is the routine for these things). I asked him if this can be done. It doesn't make sense that this could be impossible.
6/14: I spoke today with Bob and expressed my concerns about the full bleed printing of my watermark and some of the images on the back of my chips. He agreed to the watermark after some conversation about the margin of error on the die cut and my explaining that I was counting on this in the first place. This comes to my relief since I fell in love with my tilted watermark. I don't have a problem reworking some of my graphics. The $1000 Samus will probably accept a circular frame and shrinkage to the proper size, but I'll probably have to figure out something else for the $500 chip as Cloud will become too small to see at 3/4". Everything else is more or less to the proper dimensions. Time to wrap the graphics up!
I also ordered 8 plain chips to make sure my color choices were sound and I had something to shuffle (with my 2 from before) until the order was completed
7/05: In the gap of time I had to go on an extended business trip to the Windy City, which was most excellent. Lou Malnati's pizzeria officially contains the best pizza I've ever had in my life. They have Chicago deep dish down to a science (order the butter crust and a Malnati's salad, you will
not regret it.) and after already sampling Gino's deep dish, the winner was crystal clear.
As soon as I got back I cleared up the air with bob@PCOL, finalizing and approving the proof, though there was nothing strange to approve sine I created all of the artwork and sent it his way to line up and feed into his machines.
See parent post for sample proof!
I'm asking for a list of my color picks matched to the order of graphics I sent, both to be sure they have it right and I have the correct colors chosen. I think, if I didn't originally order it this way, that I'll have the $5k chip switched to yellow/mandarin red.
In the time that I've finished these graphics, everyone who has handled casino chips that has seen the artwork has requested a couple as a keepsake. I'm probably going to have to order close to 200 more chips just to cover the ones I'll give away! I reckon I'll have to drill them for security's sake. If by any off chance someone wants some of these I'll gladly give them up for the price paid. (amortized over shipping, about $.89 apiece?)
You'll see that I am planning to print over the "printable area" boundaries with my watermark
and 2 of my chips' main graphics; this was discussed in detail and clearly understood between myself and PCOL. If this is something you think you'll want to do with your future order, know that it can be done if enough conversation is had. Originally the sales reps stated that this was impossible, which put the entire order on dire straits.
After tomorrow this will mark the Big Wait until they charge me for 'em and send them my way. I've already broken in the sample chips PCOL sent for color proof and matching to shuffle nice and smooth. I wouldn't be surprised if they're worn to the size of 50 cent pieces before the UPS guy gets here!
I am also going to be building a table partially based upon the plans at
junell.cc with the 'S' logo to be airbrushed into the middle. I'm also going to need to explore storage for the chips themselves. I'd like to find a way to store these in a nice tool case in simple trays, but with a little glamor than the method reviewed on this and similar site reviews. I'll also want to get a set of nice lammers and other toys from the same place I buy the trays. I have a set of KEM and Copag cards ready to be used with these new guys, I can't wait!
7/25: I've received word from PCOL that they're going to charge my card and "send my order to Portland," whatever that means. It sounds good to me! Smile Fast work from them, I didn't anticipate this going so quickly!
8/9: Well, in the time covered so far I've spoken to PCOL a couple times, paid for my chips, and as a kind gesture they're pre-oiling my chips for me! While I'd like to work out my own technique and do tons of before/after comparisons with/without mineral oil (there're going to be a
few pics when these busters arrive
), I'm not going to argue towards having to hand oil 1900 chips.
When I asked how they oiled the chips automatically, Cathy responded that they get fed through a machine 3 times, but I don't know if that's for the entire "Portland" process or if that's how they get oiled alone. However, it's clear that they do have a machine for the oiling process. Maybe more of us should bother them about what it is!
They said they'd hope to have the order shipping by Friday, which means I could have these delivered by 8/19! Right now that feels like 100 years into the future.
Aside from waiting I am also trying to determine how to store these guys and am looking for trays to store them. I'm pretty sure the set will live in 2 cases from Home Depot. Also in my mind is the table, but I think that's at least a month off due to the cost of the materials. (!@#&*()$&* CAN'T WAIT.
8/15: Well, I called them on Thursday to see what the chances were that they'd be shipping on Friday, and the response I got illustrates that they don't get much progress feedback from their production facilities, especially considering the news I got today.
Word was that my order was shipping "hopefully Friday, but if not then, Monday." When I didn't receive any tracking info on Friday, I looked to today for shipping confirmation.
However, I got a phonecall this morning to hear that my NCV chips were bad and they had to be redone. No worries, the NCV chips are peripherals to the main set. However, the main set wasn't to be shipped today, but "probably tomorrow".
...
Oh well. Can't rush beauty, I guess. However, I'd rather they be straight with their estimates and stop assigning a probability to each day, presumably forgetting they'd estimated badly twice already.
I was hoping to have these for the weekend. If they do ship tomorrow, I have a slight chance of them being grounded to me by Friday. If after that, I'm going to ask them about the cost of upgrading the shipping speed.
***PART 2***
HAHA, no sooner than my posting glum feelings about all of this do I get this:
I guess that means all but they gray (perhaps the other NCV chip too) are on their way!
:cool:
:cool:
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Linear Mode
