Buying poker chips - how many of each?

I'm buying a starter set of poker chips -- just 100 for now. I know it's not enough to use for a large game, but since I'm mostly buying them to practice my chip riffling technique it should be fine. I get to choose how many of each denomination to buy, so wondering what you folks think. Here's what I'm thinking of how to break down the 100:

$25 chips - 45
$100 chips - 30
$500 chips - 15
$1,000 chips - 10

Does that sound practical, assuming I may someday want to use them for a small home game? Or am I wrong in thinking it's better to have more small denomination chips? Would it be better to get a more equal number of $25 and $100 chips?

Are there any conventions to go with in selecting what colors correspond to a particular denomination?

You should invest in chips that are just colors and come in a case. The usual colors are green, red, white, blue, and black. That way, you can make them any denomination you want.

They are just colors, but I'm mentally assigning denominations to them before purchasing. No case, though. I've got a nice little bag I hope to keep them in.

If you are looking to buy chips only to play around with while in front of the computer, then go to Wal-Mart or a similar store and buy some composite plastic chips which come in a tube of 50 chips in any colour you want. They are much cheaper than buying a set and you can obtain the same amount of chips for half the price, but with no case.

Thanks for the advice. I've got my eye on some 14 gram clay chips on eBay, and the reason I'm buying them there is because I won some eBay gift certificates recently, so they're essentially free.

Very nice. Free chips are the best chips.

A buddy of mine got a poker set off of E-Bay last week.. It was only $10 but the kicker is the shipping and handling- $40!.. It was 500 14 gram chips though with denominations and logos all over them..We used them in our home game Tuesday night and everyone was raving about them.. Apparently this person runs several of these auctions each day and has nearly all positive feedback so it isn't a scam or anything.. Well worth the buy; not in your case however; but in general for a good set of chips!

This makes me laugh, not because of you roundcat, but because of me,my sister went to Foxwoods a year ago so i had her get me $20. in chips from Foxwoods,, Well the more i tried them chip tricks the more the chips were on my floor,lol, i did manage to learn one trick without dropping them, then last Xmas i saw a set at Kmart on sale, $ 24.99 for a set of 13.5 chips and case,there were 500 chips in it with 2 decks of cards and a aluminum case, to make a long story short, its been sitting on my floor since last Xmas, i opened it once to see what they looked like, But what i wanted to tell you is you can get some great deals around Xmas if you want to wait that long,, good luck with the tricks, i didnt have the patience,lol>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>buck:hello :
PS>and the $20. in chips my sister got for me, when my daughter took me to Foxwoods a while back i cashed them in.

Yeah that reminds me Buck. I got a set in a carousel with two decks of cards from Marlboro. Used them once in a home game. Now they are by my computer and make a great foot rest!

Kmart isn't a place I would have ever thought to look for chips! (Well, except maybe of the potato variety.) Funny where things like that will pop up.

I ended up buying the set I was looking at on eBay yesterday and got 30 each of two colors and 20 each of two other colors. Actually mixed colors... they're quite pretty. I know I won't get a whole lot of practical use out of them but I enjoy the look and feel of chips. Bought a card protector on eBay yesterday, too... been looking for the right one for weeks, so I hope this one feels right to me when it arrives.

If you have a Kmart there look where the Kids Games & Toys are, thats where they are at the store here,, Also at Bennys, Walmart in games section.
buck

Dunno if you've figured out how many of each you're going to buy yet, but I have a chipset and here are the values with how many of each there are (I personally like the style):

300 total
100 white (value of 1)
100 red (value of 5)
50 green (value of 25)
50 blue (value of 50)
50 black (value of 100)

then we just divide the chips so that each player gets 1000 in value.

Yeah, clay chips are the way to go if you're going to buy chips for home games.

(In the UK) I imported some clay chips and some decent plastic ones - to sell on my site... the plastic ones are 11.5g and have a metal insert to give them a better sound. The clay ones are 13.5g... the clay ones have proved to be more likely to have manufacturing defects, and I've yet to see anybody who could easily tell the difference without directly comparing them... the clay ones are also more likely to shed a little coloured dust (so your white chips end up with a wipe-off but annoying pinky colouring when you handle red chips as well, etc). They're also more fragile (the plastic ones are all but bullet-proof - you'll blunt a craft knife quickly trying to cut them). The clay chips do have a slightly smoother feel, and a slightly nicer sound, but speaking as a seller, I don't think they're remotely worth the extra money, because 95%+ won't be able to tell the difference, and you do have to treat them more carefully, etc. If you want chips that you can play in a home game, and could pretty much put in the dishwasher if you got them really sticky, then the unnumbered 11.5g plastic chips are the ones to go for.
Just go for at least 11.5g chips, because the lighter chips (8g and 4g) feel and sound rather different, and they are easily distinguishable from higher-quality chips. Many of the 8g chips also have printed-on designs, rather than having the design as part of the chip, which reduces their durability.
Unnumbered ones are better for poker than numbered ones, because the values you tend to get for numbering is generally rather far apart, and more suitable for casino-type games like roulette rather than poker. I've generally found values like 1,2,5,10,20 to be better than larger spacings, otherwise you quickly find yourself all but ignoring half your chips (particularly in No Limit), which rather wastes buying a set with a nice selection of colours.

You should be able to get a set in a case for about the same price as you'd get the chips individually, because sellers do put a markup for smaller quantities of chips, so 6 50-chip rolls will then be about the same as a 300-chip set (or more expensive, often). A bricks and mortar store may charge more for a set when they sell the rolls individually, but if you look at the likes of eBay then you'll be hard-pushed to find a deal where the rolls work out cheaper... because the cost to purchase sets wholesale from China isn't much different to the cost of buying just the same number of chips.

The other decision to make is what size of set to get - 300 chips will be good for 4-5 people, perhaps 6... if you want 7-8 people you'll want a 500 chip set at least, and it's not hard to get 600, 750 or 1000 chip sets if you want a larger game... in some ways, though, it's probably worth starting with a smaller set and picking up a second set if you need more chips, because by the time you get to 1000 clay chips you've got a case weighing 16kg, which many people find a bit heavy for comfort, and 2 500-chip sets would be more practical (one in each hand, or give one to a friend to carry).