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The Chip Board Archive 19

Mail order Dice from the 1950's

Here's a couple of pages from the Hunt & Co. catalog of 1955. Things were a little more lax in those days; you could get your dice (or your cards, or your punchboard) manufactured to just about any advantage you wanted; "stronger" dice cost more. I deduced that "bankers" are the operators of casinos (usually illegal, or at least unlicensed). "Inside" means the hardware is used inside your club.

The catalog also offers a full line of card-marking ink and daubs, as well as cards marked to your order. Even a pair of ruby-ized crystal glasses to use with their red cards marked with "luminous ink".

Back of the catalog shows their "plain stackrite chips", which appear to be Monarch mold, and their "Genuine non-duplicate" chips with chain mold and customized with your own initials, numbers, or logo. They don't seem to use the words "crest or seal" anywhere. That terminology may be from earlier in the century?

Notice the price of the advantage dice. These are prices from over 50 years ago. The best stuff is $50-75 a "set", apparently 10 dice. That would be $400-500 in today's debased dollar!

The did show some customer loyalty; some of the really special catalog items included an explanation of how to use and what the advantage was, and they would only sell to established customers [g].


Copyright 2022 David Spragg