Casino chip manufacturer's logos

I have posted several times regarding the fact that I collect $1 souvenir chips from casinos I visit, including the claim that I have chips from every casino in Clark county plus Pahrump that has blackjack and/or craps. About a month ago, the “Wildest swings” thread was diverted for a while by a discussion of plastic vs. clay chips. That discussion was inspired in part by an interesting post by MathExtremist (here) providing links and references to chip manufacturers.

Then yesterday, quite separately, in the “Casinos don’t cheat” thread, MathExtremist again posted (here) an interesting link to the Nevada gaming regulations. I took a scan at that document and read the section describing the restrictions/requirements for gaming chips, including the following:

Quote: Nevada Gaming Commission Regulations

12.030 Specifications for chips and tokens.
…2. (c) The manufacturer’s name or a distinctive logo or other mark identifying the manufacturer must be inscribed on at least one side of each chip and token ….

I have looked over the $1 chips in my collection, and I cannot find a manufacturer’s name on the face of any of them. I also cannot find anything that I can clearly recognize as a manufacturer’s logo on any of them. It seems that if the manufacturer's name, logo, or identifying mark is required by regulation to be on every chip, then I ought to be able to recognize it on at least some of them.

There is indeed a chip design that is used by a number of casinos that includes a molded image of a top hat and cane. I believe those are manufactured by Paulson, but I don’t know that the top hat and/or cane would be considered their corporate logo. Other than that, I can't find anything.

Is there anyone here who has actual knowledge on this topic? Can anyone point out to me a chip in common use at a Nevada casino that has the manufacturer’s name clearly on one of the faces? Can anyone tell me what I should be looking for in terms of a manufacturer’s logo or "mark" on the chip face?

Thanks.

The Top Hat & Cane, if it's truly unique to Paulison, could/should qualify as an "other mark identifying the manufacturer."

In fact, I always thought that was why it was there as well as a security measure.


But, other than that mark, I've never seen anything that could be used as a unique or identifying manufacturer's mark.

Here's an imprint that might identify a different manufacturer:


Obviously, this was found on the OldLasVegas.com site, here: http://www.oldvegaschips.com/flamingocapri.htm


And another different imprint:


From http://www.oldvegaschips.com/zanzibar.htm


Is it possible that, as better security measures were introduced, that this rule was repealed?

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Is it possible that, as better security measures were introduced, that this rule was repealed?

I only downloaded and perused the regulations document that was cited by MathExtremist. I don't know how up-to-date it is, but it does come directly from the gaming.nv.gov web site. The document does include a number of paragraph titles that are shown as "Repealed" with a date. Regulation 12 on Chips and Tokens does not show any elements as having been repealed.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Here's an imprint that might identify a different manufacturer:...

I looked over the chips in my collection again. The only one I found with the same cards and dice pattern as on your old Flamingo Capri chip is my chip from a cruise ship, the Monarch Sun, which I sailed on back in 1976 -- my very first casino! Perhaps this was the mark for a very old manufacturer, or maybe just an old mark.

A couple of the other chips have marks that I suppose could be a manufacturer's ID, but certainly not all of them that I can recognize. My chip from the Golden Gate on Fremont Street has a recurring image molded in that looks like the slot for a Torx wrench.

There's a large gallery of chip imprints here:

http://www.antiquegamblingchips.com/molddesign_overview.htm

Hold the phone! Only when mkl654321 opines is when the FINAL WORD (in essay form, of course) is, well....the final word.

Quote: MathExtremist

There's a large gallery of chip imprints here:

http://www.antiquegamblingchips.com/molddesign_overview.htm

Thanks a bunch for that link. It shows a lot of designs, but the emphasis appears to be on antique chips, as the domain name implies. Apparently there was an extensive effort to gather info from manufacturers, old-time employees, catalogs, and various collector sites. It seems that there may still be a lot of blanks in the data.

I don't really know the whole business of government regulations, but it seems to me that if the NGC requires chips to have the manufacturer's name, logo, or mark, then there really should be a reliable reference to identify what the marks and logos are and to whom they belong. Without that, it is not clear how the NGC would know whether there was conformance to the regulations. My first two guesses on what that reference should be were:

(1) An NGC document covering all of the chip markings for chips allowed in Nevada. This doesn't appear to be correct, because I can find no reference to such a document in the regulations. If you know of such a document, I would be very interested to hear of it.

(2) Files, or a coherent document, at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office or the U.S. Copyright Office. That would seem to give a manufacturer some legal standing to protect a design. However, if such info were readily available, then the person collecting the antique chip designs shouldn't have had nearly so much trouble.

Still seems as if something is lacking here. At least something is lacking in my knowledge, and I am still looking for input. I'll ask again, has anyone ever seen a casino chip that has the manufacturer's name on it? (I'm not talking about marketing samples but chips that are actually in use in casinos.)

Wow. Tons of information, including this index of imprint designs. It links to samples, many of which have enlargments: http://www.antiquegamblingchips.com/molddesignindex_site.htm

...but no info about the NGC regs (at least none I could find).

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Wow. Tons of information, including this index of imprint designs. It links to samples, many of which have enlargments: http://www.antiquegamblingchips.com/molddesignindex_site.htm

...but no info about the NGC regs (at least none I could find).

Yep, that's the one I have been looking at, from MathExtremist's reference. But it is nowhere close to being a list for all the designs in use today.