Skip to Content

Bulk Dice?

Login or register to post comments

7 replies [Last post]

Sun, 05/29/2005 - 01:07

JPOG

Offline

Joined: 12/31/1969

Hey all, I haven't been here in a while but I AM a member, heh. =)

Anyway, I know this has been asked and I've looked through some of the posts but I'll just make this a simple question and I appreicate any replies.

I have been contacting various die-makers like Chessex and Koplow games about their bulk discounts, indicating I am considering making a dice game, and sales breakover-points but haven't gotten anything back quite yet (if I do, I'll post their info here), but basically I'm trying to figure out the "typical" costs that one would look for when buying bulk dice - I probably only need about 200 or so to begin with, which I know almost doesn't qualify as "bulk" in the world of the mainstream game industry, but from somewhere in my brain I come up with the idea that someone noted that standard 8mm opaque D6s should cost between 6-8 cents USD at "warehouse" prices and that 18 cents USD and above is basically retail value, which gamemakers obviously don't want to pay. Does anyone know of good deals/companies for someone in the US to buy bulk dice (D6s and/or polyhedral) somewhere around this range?

Also I'd like to share an embarassing thing I just did. I found (and bid on, whoah is me) an ebay seller with 240 dice for AU $19.95 (about $25.20 USD), great price right, less than 8 cents each! I wasn't paying attention to international shipping (he's in AUSTRALIA - CRAP!) and he has yet to respond to me with a shipping total (I have a feeling its going to hurt) but I went to Australia Post and used their postage calculator that tells me it might cost up to AU $47.00 for shipping (from the seller's other posts, I think 240 dice is about 2 lbs or 1.25-1.50kg) - shipping for 2 lbs from the US to Australia isn't nearly that expensive. Oh well. =)

Sun, 05/29/2005 - 09:46

#1

seo

seo's picture

Offline

Joined: 07/21/2008

Bulk Dice?

I think you're confused in the currency exchange.
20 AUD = 15 USD
47 AUD = 36 USD

So you're probably talking about around USD 51, or 21 cents each die.

Seo

Sun, 05/29/2005 - 10:47

#2

JPOG

Offline

Joined: 12/31/1969

Bulk Dice?

240 x .063 USD = $15.20 USD and $15.20 / 240 = .063, its about 6 and a third cents USD each, right?

Thats near wholesale prices for dice from what I understand. But I could have ordered some for .15 from the states which would have been much less shipping, and actually been getting a better deal. Argh. Some days it just isn't worth chewing through the leather straps.

Sun, 05/29/2005 - 10:57

#3

jkopena

Offline

Joined: 12/31/1969

Bulk Dice?

JPOG,

I poked around looking up dice info a lot last year. My group and I were looking for standard 16mm D6s. Besides size, a basic division is square corners or round. Square run about 6 cents per die, round about 9.

For square dice, I would order from:

Rolco Games: rolcogames.com
Relevant dice: http://rolcogames.com/Dice.htm
Sales contact: Carrie Muell
Market Research Analyst
tel. 507-931-4525 ext.38
fax. 507-931-6264
cmuell@rolcoinc.com
Price: 57.8*5 = $289/5000 dice, plus shipping
Notes: I don't know if they take credit cards

For rounded corners, I would order from:

Chessex Dice: chessex.com
Relevant dice: http://www.chessex.com/Dice/Opaque%20Dice/25406.htm
Sales contact: Greg
sales@chessex.com
888-243-7739
Price: 0.085*5k = $425/5000 dice, plus shipping
Notes: They will take credit cards

I contacted four or so other prominent companies as well for both rounded and squares, and the prices are all either exactly the same or work out to be very close. For example, there's a company in England that's slightly cheaper than Chessex for good quality die, but shipping was more for us. Their info is:

Dice & Games Ltd: dice.co.uk
Relevant dice: http://www.dice.co.uk/fs_spotdice.htm
Sales contact: Christine Blanden
Sales Administrator
christine@dice.co.uk
Price: 81.9*5 = $409.5US, plus shipping
Notes: They will take credit cards. They quoted me UPS expedited
shipping at $117.57 to Philadelphia, Pa. I don't know what
standard would cost.

Parts and dice for a lot of the cheap Monopoly sets you see in stores are made by Rolco if you want an example. You can also get a decent sample pack from them through their web page. Smugglers of the Galaxy (an independent board game I play sometimes) uses their spaceships and dice. The dice in Heroes Incorporated (a semi-independent game; the designer started his own company but already had a substantial name & backing from computer games) are from Chessex.

My group wound up ordering 1000 dice from Chessex for some games we're slowly working on producing. I think we wound up dropping like $90US after shipping, but I didn't place the order and don't have the number on hand. We went with the round corners because they feel a little nicer/weightier and one of our guys is big into dice and was really pushing the rounded corners.

Sun, 05/29/2005 - 16:59

#4

JPOG

Offline

Joined: 12/31/1969

Bulk Dice?

Wow, awesome! I appreciate the reply, it gives me a good few bits of information to consider. I was afraid "thousands" were closer to TRUE bulk than hundreds. Sigh.

Wed, 06/01/2005 - 21:47

#5

JPOG

Offline

Joined: 12/31/1969

Bulk Dice?

Here is the reply from Koplow Games:

"Hi Jason:

Thank you for your interest in Koplow Games.

You may purchase dice from us as a manufacturer. Your initial order would have
to be at least $150.00 and all follow up orders would have to be at least $50.00.

You also need to understand the "difference" between a D6 and a 16MM. A D6
is a 16MM die, but it has numbers 1-6 on it. A 16MM D6 is usually a 16MM
die with spots. The dice with numbers are more expensive than the dice
with spots. Please see pricing listed below:

16MM D6

1,000pcs: $66.00 per 1,000pcs. $130.00 per 1,000pcs.
5,000pcs: $60.00 per 1,000pcs. $110.00 per 1,000pcs.
10,000pcs: $50.00 per 1,000pcs. $ 90.00 per 1,000pcs.

I will be happy to send you more pricing on other items if you will kindly list them.

Sincerely:

Lenny Kasanoff"

and here is the reply from Chessex:

"Jason: Are the d6’s you want with numbers or pips? For the polyhedral dice our cost is more than .06 so you should buy those. If the 16mm d6 you want have pips then our best price is .072 for quantities above 10,000 dice. Freight would be extra on all bulk purchases.

GREG"

Both nice and helpful, though Koplow seemed to improv a little better. I don't remember exactly what I said (I sent the same to both) but it was along the lines of having seen that bulk dice should cost between 5 and 10 cents USD.

Anyway, its not much help but hey, I tried. The company that makes the dice for Monpoloy and such have bulk discounts starting at orders of 1,000 and go to 1 million - WOW.

Fri, 07/08/2005 - 12:31

#6

Anonymous

Bulk Dice?

This is great information and very helpful... I wouldn't have guessed that pipped dice were cheaper than numbered dice!

Mon, 07/11/2005 - 10:39

#7

phpbbadmin

Offline

Joined: 04/23/2013

Bulk Dice?

JPOG wrote:

Here is the reply from Koplow Games:
You also need to understand the "difference" between a D6 and a 16MM. A D6
is a 16MM die, but it has numbers 1-6 on it. A 16MM D6 is usually a 16MM
die with spots. The dice with numbers are more expensive than the dice
with spots. Please see pricing listed below:

Wiki Fodder.

Login or register to post comments

forum | by Dr. Radut