I finally got around to taking some photos of these... I'll get them into a game next weekend.
I had these dealer buttons custom made by Palm Imports.
When you buy in to my game, you get a Hanahan Stan pill bottle with your starting stack inside. On the underside of the lid of the pill bottle is your table color and seat number. Since I always have to answer the question, "Which table is the green table?" I thought these dealer buttons would solve the problem. Truth be told, we pass the deal so we really don't need dealer buttons. Sometimes, when we consolidate to one table, we'll get a dedicated dealer. And sometimes, my brother will deal when he's short of cabbage for the buyin. So *occasionally* we do need dealer buttons.
A huge thank you to OnTheButton who whipped up the design for me, and of course, to John (austin5String) who designed the WPT logo way back when.
Pros:
- Price: I got these on special from CT for about $4 per button.
- Customer Service: Within an hour of emailing Joe at Palm Imports the artwork, I had a photo of my completed buttons and they were boxed and mailed. I had them 2 days later.
Cons:
- Price: I was charged $8-ish for shipping (even though the Priority Box had only $4.05 in shipping on it), so the average was closer to $8 per button. Still, when the acryllic buttons are about $30 each, these were a steal.
- Size: They're 3 1/2 inches... nearly double the size of a standard dealer button. This could become awkward on a smaller table.
- Finish: I considered getting these done by abcgiftsandawards, but chose Palm Imports strictly on price (turns out they would've been about the same). The buttons I have seen from ABC has a beautiful hi gloss finish to them. My buttons have a matte finish. I don't know if a polished finish is available from Palm, but I didn't know to ask, and I wasn't offerred.
- Color: The background of my buttons was designed to be white. However, the buttons are ivory-ish. You can definitely tell where the white print ends and the button color begins. I think it would look odd with a colored background, as its not just the edge, but an ivory "rim" on the top surface. (To be fair, the ABC button has a black "rim"... I guess its all preference.)
I'm not unhappy with the buttons, but I would be doing you a dis-service if I didn't point out some of the short-comings. They serve their intended purpose -- to identify the tables by color. They are a little big for a dealer button, but in my games, the delaer button usually gets set aside after two rotations around the table anyway. And who knows, maybe the size of these will actually catch on.
#3 and #4 aren't really fair for "cons". They are more personal preference...
Without further delay, let's seem some photos...
First, let's get a perspective on these bad boys... Here they are with some poker width cards, some TRK chips (apprently, as of today, it has been confirmed that TRK isn't doing customs anymore (at least for the time being) -- and the future of TRK is uncertain... :'( ) and a ruler.
Here is my dealer button with a standard 2" button on top of it...
These "buttons" are really coasters... I was concerned about how they'd slide across the felt... But fear not, the bottom has almost the same feel as the top (i.e.: the bottom is not a rough, unfinished feel), and there is no fear that these will snag the felt. There are three tiny "feet" that barely stick out beyond the bottom of the button. They slide fine.
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