still no response from the chip room after over a week and two emails

so apache is my best bet to order these?

Apache seems to have a good price. Are you getting the $129 with the case for 300 chips?

yeah that's the plan, it's $149 shipped and you can choose the denoms

Jim from the chip room JUST got back to me, over a week after the original email, to tell me that they are out of the $25 chips and it will be a month on back order. He did not answer my only question about offering discounts for sets.

GG lol

Thats a nice set, you have me thinking about it some. I want a tourney set and those look pretty good. It would cost me a arm and leg to get them shipped to canada but I have friends that spend time in Florida so I can over come the shipping fees.

fwiw Jim did refund me the entire price I paid the other day, even though I got about a quarter of what I ordered.

Just got my sample set in the mail from Apache, great customer service and had the chips within a week of placing my order.



Was really excited to take them out of the bag, so colorful...but that excitement unfortunately quickly faded.

I'm just not impressed with these chips. They look great and definitely are an improvement over most non-paulson sets, but I think the fact that I've been shuffling stacks of casino paulsons and was expected something a little closer in resemblance basically doomed my opinion of these chips from the start.

But it's not just an errant waving of the nose at these chips, there are some pretty serious issues. For starters, the weight is extremely inconsistent: Out of a 9 chip sample set I had a 9.1g chip, a 9.2, a 9.4, 9.5, 9.6, 9.7, and three 9.8s. Wow. In addition they are both wider and thinner than the paulson chips, which gives them a rather cheap feel.

On to the appearance...again, at first very nice visually, but upon closer inspection the chips just feel a bit dull and faded, like they need a good oiling. But they're made of China Clay, and you can't oil those....hmm.

In addition to the washed out appearance of the colors, there appears to be a small miscoloration on every chip. Every. Single. Chip. Are the sample sets supposed to be the worst quality chips in the lot?



Would be fun to play with, but if this is as close as it gets to Paulson look-alikes for a lower price then I guess I'm just going to have to wait until I can afford the real thing...

Yeah, you gotta temper those expectations. I own a set of Pharoahs, and I think China Clays are great bang for the buck, but they are not Paulsons. If you go into this expecting new Paulson-like chips for .40 each, you will be disappointed.

Actually the Pharoahs are thicker than Paulsons. A stack of 20 sits about a chip higher than a stack of 20 almost-new Paulsons that I own. I can't speak to the weight issue, as I haven't weighed mine. They feel consistent enough at the table.

You can oil them (I haven't), but I've read reports that the oil doesn't adhere/absorb well. They will shine up a bit with regular use, but they never quite get to the sheen of a freshly oiled Paulson. That's one of the tradeoffs.

It's just an artifact of the way these chips are made.

I grabbed a random sample of 45 chips from my set, and 11 had noticeable off-color spots or misshapen edge spots. I try to put a positive spin on it; they have character, not imperfections.

But if these little things bother you, you may want to hold off on a full set. This is exactly why we say, "Get samples first!"

Again, you can't expect a $0.30-0.40 chip to be equal in quality to a $1.00-1.50 chip. My mantra for China Clays has always been "2/3 of a Paulson for 1/3 of the price." But if you want Paulsons and can afford Paulsons, then buy Paulsons. You're not saving money if you buy a cheaper set of chips that you don't want.

Well, if you only want 1, 5 and 25s - you can get used paulson's relatively cheaply (~0.40/per or lower) provided that you are willing to do a little work (and wait for the occasional sale). higher and lower denoms increase in a bit in price, 0.50, 100s not too bad, above that a bit pricey.

Remember what I said about "Chipitis"? This is how it starts . . .

I see no one has any opinions

Anyone recommend another set of chips that doesn't have these problems, or is the full-blown Paulson chip the only thing bett

Okay . . . I will look through my 1000 pc set, but I do not remember any quality issues when I first went through them upon receipt of the set a couple years ago. Re: the weight variance, etc: you are going to have to accept that you are NOT buying a casino grade chip and make allowances for less than casino grade standards. If you cannot do this, buy Paulson's or ASMs. There are many satisfied Pharoah's Club owners . . . maybe we all have lower expectations of a $0.40 chip. For the record, when I ordered extra T25 ceramics to expand my set, the batch colour was noticably different. **** happens.

Have you looked at nevada Jacks? I am happy with mine

Awesome replies, thanks...you guys are awesome

Nevada Jacks are nice but I would rather take something like the Pharoah's.

However it's $150 for a set of Pharoah's shipped, and only $378 for the Paulson's, so they're not exactly 1/3 of the price. I'll mull it over for awhile

In that "mid-level chip survey" thread, I posted a review of claysmith chips, which are another option that try to be more clay-like. Keep getting samples, that's the only way to find what you like.

Looking for a set similar to Pharaoh's that have a 5c chip?

Was looking at Venerati's, Crazy Horse, etc... but all only go down to .25c

My cash games are very low buyin compared to most, so I really want to have a 5c chip in play for 5c/5c or 5c/10c blinds.

Thoughts on an alternative to Pharaoh?