I believe that our club/hobby is in serious trouble. We have taken slabbing as the battle cry as what is wrong with our hobby and let it become the wedge that is dividing us into two. I believe that slabbing is a symptom of what is wrong with our hobby not the cause. These are what I believe are our real problems:

1. Lunatic/investor types who overpay for chips, such as what we have seen with the recent Hard Rock chips. These non-collectors/investors create artificial high demand for issues and send the values to unrealistic high levels only to be disappointed when the go to sell them when they will realize that once the hype is gone and only real collectors are left, then the true value will show. I suggest we look at what happened to beanie baby prices as an example of what can happen to in this type of crash and burn pricing.

2. Dealers who hoard new issues or who find caches of old chips and attempt to control the market.

3. People who sell via Ebay, Jackpot, etc. who picture one chip and substitute a different quality chip at the time of the sale.

4. Counterfeit chips.

These last two issues while not rampant, are what slabbing was created for. It gives the buyer a sense of security that the seller has made an attempt to verify quality and authenticity. While I am not in favor of slabbing, I can see why some people would be interested in it, particularly in higher value chips and I agree with the board that it should be left to the individual to decide if they want to buy a slabbed chip or not.

We have a great hobby with good people who feel very passionately about it. Please do not let slabbing be our civil war, it is not worth it. We must remember foremost that we are here to have fun.

If we do not want slabbing in our hobby, lets change the bylaws/constitution to ban it. While we would eliminate slabbed chips at our convention and in our club magazine would this really solve our problems? How would we control our members from buying slabbed chips? Would we institute a “SS” squad to monitor Ebay and other areas and punish members if they are found to have bought slabbed chips? I don’t think so and let me tell you, I would be the first to turn in my membership card if we did.

I do not have the answers to our problems, but I do believe that we can correct them if we work together. If we let this issue divide our club then we will be the real losers. Let us re-direct our passions to fix the problems not just treat the symptoms.