[Stevo]

Giant Inlay Lucky Bees Poker Chips
by Stevo

Manufacturer: Nexgen
Retailer(s): PersonalPokerChips.com
Average Price: Not sure yet, guessing about $.15-$.25 per chip
Material: Slugged Plastic Chip

These are the newest Lucky Bee chips from Nexgen. They differ from earlier Nexgen offerings in that these chips allow a much larger area for labels. Indeed, these chips would appear to accommodate a label of about 1 and 1/4 inches.

Pros

• Allows for great customization with large inlay area
• Really nice looking new edge-spot colors
• Very reasonable price for a nice mid-range chip

Cons

• A little slick with not much contact between chips
• Edge-spot patterns don't vary if you are into that sort of thing
• Still metal slugged

Price

These are a brand new chip so I have not been able to price them. My guess is that they will be in line with most Nexgen chips, anywhere from around $.15-$.25 per chip, depending upon where you get them from.

Feel

These chips feel pretty much like all the other Nexgens. They are sort of a hard plastic which disguises the metal slug beneath. They interestingly appear slightly thinner than normal Nexgens. They are very similar in size and feel to the Casino Royale chips with the exception that the Royales use a softer plastic.

Stacking

I only had a small sample set of these to work with but they are a little slick. I have had sets of the original Nexgens and the original lucky bees. I would put these chips around the slickness of the original lucky bees. They are by no means dice chips, but they are not Paulsons either. I would imagine that 20 chip stacks would have no problems whatsoever but would be concerned with table bumps going much higher than that.

Sound

These have the standard metal slug, Nexgen sound. Kind of a thud more than a clank. Very little metallic noise. Sort of a deep, muted clack.

Looks

I like the colors Nexgen used on these chips. Looks are a personal thing, but I can see a great cash set using the white, blue, red and yellow chip. The tourney colors are ok, I'm not a huge fan of the green chip and although the black and purple chips are very different in terms of edge-spots, I can see someone having trouble differentiating between them in a dark room.

Security/Originality

These are probably as secure as you want them to be. You can buy them anywhere (unsecure) but with a custom label or hotstamp (I assume you can do this as you could hotstamp older Nexgens), these should have all the security you would need.

Durability

They are hard-plastic, metal-slugged chips. They should last you a lifetime with normal use.

Reviewers Comments

These are a new, middle of the road chip offering from Nexgen. There is a little less contact between the chips due to the giant inlay and the chips appear slightly thinner than other slugged chips I have seen. That said, the new colors really are great and go together well. The opportunity to utilize the recessed area for a larger-than-normal inlay is a new idea and it should give people a lot of options. If I were currently in the market for a middle-line, customizable chip, these would be on my short list.