Hi Mike,

What you are witnessing is reaction to what was purportedly a tongue-in-cheek parody use of a phrase that has been used for months to condemn the people who condone and/or support chip grading and slabbing. Don Lueders posted a single line saying "Chip service collecting ain't chipping." "Slabbing ain't chipping" was the phrase he thought he was making a viable parody of, went on to justify it by stating that most readers would recognize the parody, AND wrote that there is some truth to his parody. I see no truth to it. Obviously, neither do many others. His justification (at least part of it) was a dislike for LE's, some of which never hit a table, in some cases none hit a table. Every blank chip that I own (no casino name, no printing, no nothing, I bought them just because I wanted an example of the chip mold) I bought from Don. He had an exhibit at the convention a couple years ago that was all chip molds and variations. These are areas of chip collecting that have nothing to do with history of a casino, or obtaining a chip from that casino in person. His "parody" of chip services vs slabbing is baseless, and personally insulting to quite a few people who have been dedicated to this hobby for many years. He could end the entire controversy by admitting that he was wrong.

Bob