How do I clean off the grime from old casino poker chips?

[FoxUK]

Ages ago I bought a complete set of second hand chips from the sale of the Crystal Casino, California's assets. They're lovely chips, 100% authentic clay Paulson Inverted Hat & Cane, but the lower denominations have obviously been played and some of them are caked in the kind of grubby-hand crud that has you screaming for the disinfectant as soon as you set eyes on them.

White spirit and elbow grease does shift the muck but it's a long slog, I have a thousand chips to wade through and, to be honest, I think I am getting finger cancer from the toxic chemicals. Also, it tends to fade the chips a tad.

Slapping them into a washing machine doesn;t help either. I tried with a small sample set of chips and succeeded in chipping the hell out of the edges.

So can anyone recommend a way to easily clean these chips?

[FoxUK]

PS Sorry if this isn't the right forum. Wasn't sure where to post a question like this.

[FoxUK]

Never mind, I managed to wrestle the search engine into submission and found this thread...

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...ue#Post10276671

[Grasshopp3r]

There are also some ideas about cleaning chips at www.chiptalk.net

[MookieBlaylock]

In the past I have used warm water with a little dishwashing soap and an old toothbrush to scrub them. It took a little while, but it worked.

[frommagio]

[ QUOTE ]
There are also some ideas about cleaning chips at www.chiptalk.net

[/ QUOTE ]

Chiptalk is the place. There are even discussions of different chip-cleaner products.

[FoxUK]

Brilliant site. Thanks for the pointer

[FoxUK]

I think I found the answer and it was, indeed, on Chip Talk, specifically in the foloowing thread...

http://www.chiptalk.net/forum/poker-...on-update.html

In brief, the way to go is bacterial drain cleaner. Not Draino or some other caustic cleaner, but one which uses either a bacterial of enzymatic way to digest grease. It will literally eat the grime off of your chips and leave you with something that should only take a light scrubbing with a toothbrush to make pristine. Caustic and chemical cleaners are a big NO as they will probably dissolve your chip, discolour them or otherwise do something nasty.

Now I need to find a product of this variety in the UK. For you US types check out the linked thread for what appears to be a very good cleaner.

[stan ivey]

thanks for finding us a thorough answer on the age-old dilemma on how to clean dirty poker chip