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The Latest in Vintage Poker Jewelry

The poker phenomenon is sweeping the country and shows no signs of stopping, Crossing over into the main stream, poker has spawned a booming market for lifestyle related merchandise. Just ask California designer Meredith Miller. She is betting that she can win big with a line of jewelry made from vintage antique poker chips. Her Pokerchip Girl line was launched in January 5 and features pendants, pins, money clips, and other accessories for both sexes.

Each piece is hand crafted by the designer herself and embellished with the finest Swarovski crystals. Miller caters to conservative men by making some of the money clips without the sparkle. Many of her poker chips date back to the turn of the 20th century and each one is different. In the old days they didn't have numbers on chips, they had pictures. The rarity is determined by how many were made and for how long. "Some chips were produced for a very short time," Miller says. "This makes them hard to find and very valuable."

This savvy businesswoman is quick to spot a trend and identify new directions in the gift industry. Miller first realized what was going on with poker when she bought a few game-related items to place in the gift shop section of the historic Fair Oaks Pharmacy and Soda Fountain in Pasadena, which she owns with her husband.

I saw that poker is shaking up every corner of the universe and started looking for something I could do." Soon after, she came across her first set of antique poker chips at the Rose Bowl Swap Meet in Pasadena, and her fashion light bulb went on, poker jewelry designed and made from antique poker chips and the finest quality crystal.

From her past experience, the designer knew that many people want to wear clothing and accessories that make an unusual fashion statement. That's when she got to work researching the history of poker chips and found out about the artistic quality of antique versions compared to what you see today.

In the late 1800s, the most prized possessions of riverboat and frontier gamblers were their personal sets of chips and cards. Traveling from place to place, wherever a game could be arranged, they played with specially made monogrammed chips. Wyatt Earp for example, might have had W or WE on his personal set.

Some early versions were elaborately fashioned from expensive materials such as mother-of-pearls or hand-scrimshawed ivory. Rare sets were carved into unusual shapes and are now considered small individual works of art. "There are some out there that look like fish," says the designer, and I'd really like to find them."

The ivory chip is the direct predecessor of our contemporary clay version. Old-time gambling establishments had their names engraved each chip, as do modern casinos today. There was a good reason for this practice. Since poker had a reputation for being a "cheating" game, in the early part of the 20th century, counterfeiting ivory chips became a real problem.

By the 1950s casinos all used clay along with custom engravings and multicolored edges. The most common chip today for home use is mass-produced injection-molded plastic, made to be durable and long lasting. The only plastic-like material Miller has found in vintage poker chips is made of bakelite, and still highly collectible.

The clay chips Miller is using for Pokerchip Girl are from the late 1800s to the 1930s and include a wide variety of designs that are hand inlaid or ink-engraved with playing card suites, a flush hand, bulldogs, kitties, crescent moons, owls, the Maltese cross, a Victorian heart, shamrocks, moons and stars, and a royal crown.

To help in her quest of locating collectible chips, Miller has developed a network of chip aficionados that give her leads on rare finds. She often visits online auctions to bid on valuable collections.

Miller says that antique chip collecting has become extremely popular over the past decade. The most expensive chip to collect is from the early casinos in Las Vegas. The cost of one collectible can range from $500 to $5000. The definitive book on the subject is Dale Seymour's Antique Gambling Chips. He has identified and cataloged more than 1300 ivory designs alone. The most expensive clay composition chips were made by the U.S. Playing Card Company in Cincinnati, Ohio from 1907-1939. These were the "Crest & Seal) chips, which had a circular lithograph embedded in the clay with a polyurethane-type liquid sealing the entire surface.

She's currently adding pet collars and charm bracelets to the jewelry line. If you send her a chip, she'll make it up into a custom piece. Some people just want one for good luck. "A woman who got one for Christmas won $100 on the slot machines when she wore it."

Miller says that it's not only beauty and luck that makes her poker jewelry so special. "It's the chips themselves. Each one is a little piece of history."