Collectables -> Casino -> Chips
Casino chips, also known as casino tokens or checks, are the small round pieces that are similar to coins but only used as money inside casinos. They’re usually made from molded plastic, clay or metal are are used at the table games inside a casino, not in the slot machines where metal token coins are used. Casino chip collecting is a part of coin collecting, and a very popular hobby among coin fans, though some people who don’t collect any other type of coin collect chips because of their variety of designs and colors.
When people go into a casino to play, they exchange money for casino chips. Though these chips have no value outside the casinos (except from collectors who might want them) they’re the only currency valuable inside the casino itself. The chips can be stacked and quickly counted, and a stack takes up much less than room than paper money would. They’re also more difficult to counterfeit than regular money.
A few other reasons gamblers have to use casino chips instead of money are that the dealers are less likely to make a mistake because of the uniform size of the chips and the ease of counting stacks. This uniform size and weight (in early chips, modern ones vary by weight) also allowed them to be measured in bulk without counting individual chips. The size allows “chip trays” to be used for quick counting, where the chips are pushed into grooves in bulk to measure large amounts. And finally, our nature allows us to more easily gamble with and lose a representative of our money, like casino chips, than we would with real money. It’s a psychological truth that greatly benefits the casinos.
For collectors, casinos often sell custom-made sets of their casino chips, along with one or two card decks bearing the casino stamp in a small collector’s box. The Casino Chips & Gaming Tokens Collectors Club was founded in 1988 as a central meeting place and club for those who make chip collecting a hobby.
Online auctions like eBay are great places to find collectible casino chips. The older harder-to-find chips are of course worth more, like some of the mostly clay composition poker chips used by casinos from 1880 to the late 1930s. These are worth more than the current ABS plastic chips used today. Ceramic chips were introduced in the 1980s are still used throughout casinos today, as well.
The inlay, or the printed graphics on casino chips, is one of the appeals for collectors, because of the variety of the beautiful designs available. It’s often very high-resolution and detailed artwork, a feature which not only adds to the visual appeal of the chips, but makes counterfeiting almost impossible. Some designs are actually inlaid coins of some type, which add to the weight of the chips. Some casinos even used plaques rather than round chips for higher value dollar amounts, and these are more rare than round chips and popular with collectors.
Originally posted 2008-11-03 05:00:52. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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