There is a great picture of a press that is used for clay-composition, molded chips in Dale Seymour's book on antique poker chips, but since the book is copywrighted, I do not see the picture showing up anywhere else. However, the molding dies used to create a finished chip come in two halves, both haves are called 'cups'. Cups come in a male and female version, that when clamped together create the mold for a chip. A steel plate is used to hold 12 or so cups, with a matching set of cups mounted to a second steel plate. In the press, the two plates are mated, which chip blanks inside each set of cups and both pressue and heat are applied to impress the mold design into both sides of a chip and also set the inlays.

Sometimes, the pressure will damage a cup (crack or break) and that half of the paired cups is replaced with a spare cup. A "spare" cup may come from a box of extras, or from a another plate with missing cups, but sometimes the LCV cups and the SCV cups get mixed up and the steel plate assembly of 12 (or so cup pairs) will have a mix of LCV/LCV, SCV/SCV and SCV/LCV pairs.

Jim