Hi Murph!

Actually very good questions. I don't mind shareing my thoughts and feelings.

First of let me say that I do have over 25,000 chips but that is not 25,000 different. Some Chips I have over a rack of and many by the stacks. I also have a lot of other casino items which I love.

Now to your questions.

1)At what point did the fun go out of it for you?

Well That was probably the last year. People seem to always fight when they disagree and then they get pretty mean. Spread rumors that aren't true. When you don't go with the crowd you get attacked. It killed it for me. I don't like fighting. But let me see this when i go to shows like my show and the national and i do meet up with friends I get very excited. We do dinners and talk about casino items. Go on Roulette runs or just antique shops. I make new friends every time. Even play poker with some of them .
The truth of the matter is the hobby is a lot of fun , the is only a few negative people in the hobby and they are loseing more power over the last few years. And that is what most of the fighting i think is about. And then some people just like to fight. When I think about it its kinda sad because greg is one of the most happiest persons I know and I am sure he didn't build this wonderful board for people to insult each other. I pretty much try to stay off it. Except for shareing finds and make announcements when i hear important stuff that reflects the hobby. But I do have to bad tendency to respond to comments when they are geared towards me and they are false. It seems like some people get off on saying hateful things.

Now to question 2.

2)Was it ever fun for you?

Yes it was fun and it still is. I love the hunt. Or going out with people that I meet thru the hobby. I made many wonderful friends through this hobby. It was a couple years back when i made a big chip find. Lady had like 200 chips. And I been working on it for about 2 weeks. So I was out too Dinner With barry weintraub. And she called me and told me i could come look at the chips and she wants to sell tonite. There were many rare chips there . So barry got all excited and asked me if I would let him in on the deal. So I said sure no problem. So we went there and went thru 200 chips and picked out about $15,000 worth and paid the lady. Now we went back to the hotel and spend the next 4 hours going thru chips like little kids looking them up and priceing them. And takeing out a few pieces each for our collections. That was a great time. So yes I have had and will have a lot more fun in this hobby.

As a matter of fact next time you come too town and you really wanna get to me let do dinner and maybe we can do a CHIP RUN.

Best regards
Rene