Antique Poker Chips

When you're talking Old West and Poker Chips you're talking either Ivory Poker Chips or you're talking Clay Poker Chips.

Ivory chips came first and date from 1820 to the 1870's. They were made from the tusks of Elephants or Whales and though costly held up well from all the play. Two type of chips existed those with numbers etched in them or those with designs. They ranged in size from 1 " to 1 5/8" but like all things there were exceptions. Todays market finds few Ivory chips and those that are available are rising in value. In Dale Seymour's acclaimed book, "Antique Gambling Chips" it mentions that 1400 different chip designs have been found.

With the development of man-made compounds "Composition Chips" soon became the norm as they were manufactured at a fraction of the cost of Ivory Chips. This made Ivory Chips far to expensive which signaled the demise of Ivory chips.

By the 1880's chips made from "Celluloid" had taken over the market and could be found in virtually every Saloon offering games of chance. Just think about it for a minute, Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp, two well known gamblers from the Old West period may have actually played with those "CelluloidChips" you now own.

Celluloid chips can be found in many of the Antique stores today and range in price depending on condition, quantity and if they are contained in the original box or a chip rack.

Regarding pricing of celluloid chips, what you pay per chip will differ greatly from what you will pay for an entire box of chips. By this I mean if you find a chip valued at, for example, $4.00 and then find an entire box containing 100 of the very same chip you would pay but a fraction of the $4 per chip. In fact, it may be more like .25 per chip.

Composition chips were made with paste-on's, engraved, embossed or inlaid. Many chips reflected the times by depicting current trends whether it be bicycles or baseball, ect.

Celluloid made chips were marketed under various trade names with Pyralin and Catalin being two of the first.

I should also mention that other materials were also used to make chips such as wood, bone, paper and hard rubber.

I can't promise you that the selection of chips available at Old West Antiques were played with by anyone famous buy I can assure you we have a very nice collection to choice from.

p.s. keep in mind that Old West Antiques would love to talk to you about listing your items.

p.s.s. we can also provide a seasoned group of Old West Reenactors for your upcoming events

tag: Antique Poker Chips