The History of Clay Poker Chips
For the last 75 years, clay chips have not actually been
constructed out of pure clay. Actual clay chips were used in the
United States during the late 1800’s; however, these easily
broken chips were quickly replaced by clay filled composites
that provided much greater durability and security.
In the early part of the 1900’s chips were commonly molded from
Plaskon, an ureaformaldehyde molding compound. In the 1930’s die
cut metal foil was applied to the chips to give unique identity
and added security. Bugsy Siegel opened the Flamingo Casino with
these chips.
E-PokerChips.com tells us that the 1950’s saw most casinos using
the newest chips with house designs, logos or both molded into
the rim and top of chip. Today the style and materials utilized
in the manufacture of gaming chips are unique to the particular
casino. Some have metal “coin” centers with structural plastic
outer rims. Cloth fiber reinforced polymer molded chips and a
just introduced all metal alloy poker chip that is anodized in
different brilliant colors.
Clay composite chips can be quite expensive and difficult to
find due to their popularity. These chips usually are in weight
ranges between 8 grams and 11.5 grams and are casino standard 39
mm diameter.