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Poker is the most popular card game in the world, known as a celebrated game of skill and sport. From its humble origins in the 14th century, gaming lingo has become a part of English and American culture.
Poker chips are almost identical to the game of poker itself. Early poker players sometimes used jagged gold pieces, gold nuggets, gold dust, or coins, as well as “chips” made primarily of ivory, bone, wood, paper, and a composition made of clay and shellac. Various companies between the 1880s and the late 1930s began making clay composition poker chips.
Casino chip collecting also became increasingly popular beginning in 1988 with the establishment of the Casino Chips & Gaming Tokens Collectors Club (CC>CC). Casino Chip Harvesting is the practice of intentionally taking Casino Chips from the Casino premises, trading them, or collecting them online, or in person, for the purpose of collecting them. The collection of casino chips is part of numismatics; a variation of exonumia, or coin collecting. Before it became a more serious hobby, casino chip collecting was simply a case of people keeping chips as souvenirs of a casino they had visited. Some tokens are now worth up to $50,000.
Whether you’re a serious collector or a weekend gamer, some equipment will be needed to store or display your chips. The best way to store or display your chips is highly subjective and will ultimately come down to personal preference.
There are several alternatives to display your tabs. There are frames available specifically for displaying casino chips, or you can purchase a special mounting “backing” board to hold the chips and frame them yourself. Another display option is easel-mounted frames for one or more tabs. For that extra special or lucky chip, you may want to consider a casino chip keychain. It is usually a clear plastic airtight holder attached to a keyring.
Storing your tokens can range from very inexpensive to extravagant, depending on the type of tokens you own and whether or not you want to display them. Several vendors offer “chip” folders which are basically a padded folder with the words “Casino Chips” printed on the front and spine. These binders are designed to hold the three ring binder pages which, in turn, are specifically designed to hold casino chips.
Flips are usually stored in flip folders or boxes. The former offers the convenience of being able to view your cards as if you were viewing a photo album. Folding boxes, on the other hand, allow you to store more index cards in a small space and are more efficient and practical for those of you who don’t have a lot of shelf space for index card albums.
Coin or token wallets are small vinyl albums that typically contain between 24 and 80 tokens, depending on their size. Airtight ones are clear plastic coin purses that hold a single coin. A hermetic consists of two halves that come together around a coin to form a snug, airtight fit. Airtight ones are great storage solutions for displaying your best chips, but they tend to be expensive, so it can be prohibitive to store your entire collection in them.
Coin tubes are hard plastic tubes that can hold approximately 20 tokens in a small space. Coins are tubular on the inside but molded square on the outside to prevent rolling and allow for stacking. When ordering coin tubes, you should order the 39mm or “medallion” size. Coin tubes are a good storage solution for many merchants to store, but you should note that the tokens are not separated from each other in the tubes. As a result, if not handled properly, it is theoretically possible for the chips to damage each other. For old or heavily used chips, this may not be a concern, but you may want to think twice about storing your chips in mint condition in a storage tube.
There are several varieties of cases available, from aluminum to leather, vinyl, and wood; your only limit is your budget. These cases usually contain between 300 and 500 chips, although there are some models with 1000 chips. There are several varieties of special display cases that are great for displaying your most prized chips.
Wooden poker boxes can include chip trays that can be used to protect and store your chips, or can be removed to stack each player’s chips on the poker table. There is a shallow slot in the back of the trays that allows you to stack the trays on the poker table. When buying or ordering wooden poker chip trays, it is important to specify that the finish is polyurethane or insoluble varnish. Specifically, avoid any type of oil finish such as Tung or Danish oil, as these oils can soak into the clay chips over time.
Again, make sure your chips are the right size for the chip box. Generally speaking, most chips are 39mm in size. Large denomination tokens, as well as tokens based on the Paulson Inverted Hat and Cane (IHC) fractional mold, are larger than 43mm in size.
Another measurement that can be referenced is the pan size: 66.7 or a 67.7 grid. This number is an indication of the length (in millimeters) required to hold a stack of 20 chips. Paulson chips require a 66.7 rack, others are in the 67.7 size. This may not be a major concern, but it is worth mentioning. Chip thickness can also affect how difficult it is to add or remove chips from a tray. As a chip begins to show signs of wear, the edges may become less sharp and the chip may become slightly thinner. Over time, the chips may move around a bit in the case.