Please remember! These are archives! The Dice Setter message board was shut down. What is published here are just a few of the threads documenting the early days of dice setting strategies and opinions written by the pioneers of dice influencing.
Are you sure those are real casino dice?
Heavy
Could be your practice sessions are going differently than your casino sessions because you are not playing with real casino dice. Oh, they may have the casino’s logo stamped on them. They may be the right color. They may even be “cancelled.” But it is possible that they are manufacturer’s defects/culls – or dice manufactured strictly for tourist sale. Here’s a bit of info I clipped from a dice collector’s home page on the subject. Thought you guys might find it interesting when you go shopping for practice dice.
A manufacturers reject is a die or dice that cannot be used in actual play because they are not perfect in some way. A cull is (for the most part) the same thing as a reject but for different reasons. A cull is not used in play because they are imperfect, or there was an order overage (if a casino orders 500 pairs, the manufacturer doesn’t set out to make just 500 pairs, they take into account imperfections and may make many more than the amount ordered), or the color or finish was not the type ordered (sometimes the manufacturer will make an issue in every color and finish combination to show the casino what they would look like for possible future orders).
WHY ARE THERE FAKE -&- SOUVENIR DICE?
There are reasons for the fake and souvenir dice out there. It is different from the intentional manufacturing of closed casino “commemorative” chips that have come out in previous years. These kinds of chips were well intentioned, but many collectors were duped by dealers passing the chips off as authentic.
The main reason for all the fake and souvenir dice is manufacturing defects. The main manufacturers today are Paul-son, Bud Jones and Langworthy. Their respective showrooms contain thousands of dice that sell for about 25¢ to 50¢ each. These dice were indeed made for the casino that its logo bears, but weren’t shipped to the casino because there was something imperfect about them.
Whenever a defect is discovered during manufacture, instead of throwing out the offending cube, it is stamped with a logo and thrown into the for sale bin. These are relatively easy to spot because they are often times not finished. That is to say that the process was not completed because of the defect. Sometimes the logo’s are raised up and you can feel them with your finger (Fig.1). On others you can see the lines from the scalping machines, meaning that the sides of the cube were not finished (Fig.2). This is hard to see without looking at the die itself, so I enhanced Figure 2 to accentuate the lines.
HOW TO SPOT THESE KINDS OF DICE
Whatever the defect, each die is “marked” somehow to show that it is not a perfect die.
Langworthy puts a “pin prick” on the 4 side of each die, while Paul-son puts the word “void” on the 4 side. Bud Jones sometimes uses “Void” as well, but more often they will hot stamp two silver colored X’s on the four side (XX).
Paul-Son make about 99% of their dice with a bright polish finish and metallic logo colors. You will also see closed casino culls from Paul-Son. Some examples include Pussy Cat A Go-Go, Little Caesars, and the Landmark. If you see the logo (such as the machine gun of Little Caesars or the Landmark tower) without the words “Las Vegas Nevada” around the one spot, then that is a cull. Paul-Son also uses doughnut spots on many of their souvenir/cull dice. They also rarely put the designation lettering (Las Vegas, Nevada – Reno, Nevada, Tunica, Miss, etc) on a cull. Langworthy makes 99% of their dice with a lapped or sanded finish and gold colored logos.
The primary clue to reject, cull, and “souvenir” dice is their perfect condition. You always have to be careful of dice from casinos that have been closed for years that look brand new. This is not to say that dice in perfect condition do not exist from very old casinos, but you will always see some wear and tear around the edges from table play, and maybe some logo wear. The exception to this is sticks. Many sticks, whether in foil or plastic cases, have not seen play. If you find a stick of dice from an old casino that are in perfect condition, you can be reasonably sure they are not culls or “souvenir” dice.
“AUTHENTIC” DICE
There are dice out there being sold as authentic that are NOT original to the casino. The seller can claim the dice are authentic because they own the original stamps from the various casinos, but the dice they are using the stamps on are manufactured daily. These dice are easy to tell from the real dice. They are all stamped in bright gold color and use a red die with a sand finish. The easiest way to spot these dice is that they will have no wear on the edges. Authentic casino dice that were used on the tables will have some dings or knicks along the edges from being thrown and bouncing down the table.
MAIN TRAITS OF FAKE DICE BEING PASSED OFF AS AUTHENTIC
Red, sand finish Gold hot stamp No wear along edges The price of these “authentic” casino dice is about $3 a pair, a real bargain if they were truly authentic. While I’m not sure of the intention of the seller of these dice, I do know that these dice should not be sold for more than the price of a souvenir or reject. Other manufacturers make and sell dice from closed casinos, but they are not advertised as authentic and they charge no more than they would for a reject.
Mad Professor
Heavy,
That was an excellent and informative post.
Thank you.
Heavy
By the way – you can buy a real stick of dice direct from most of the manufacturer’s mentioned in that post. They all have web sites you can find easily enough – I don’t have them bookmarked or I’d cut and paste them in here. But I found them – so can you.
We generally think of a stick of dice as being five die from the same series. But they can be purchased in sticks of two, four, or five.
