You may be right but I have seen a few auctions come up on eBay where warnings of sorts have been posted here on The Chipboard and there turned out to be no bidders This group has a lot of power to spread information and inform and educate collectors when something is not right. I just believe that if a new $5 edition was released and some slabber cornered it and was selling those chips for $20+ just because of the slab. Many collectors would not buy. Especially with a little encouragement and education on the uselessness of Slabs. I believe that we should all just say that we will not patronize any dealer or broker that engages in harmful activities toward the hobby. I posted my concerns some time ago when slabbing also was really big on everyones minds. I think it was at the time that the MM chips were a big deal too.

Back then, I tried to point out that Slabbing is just one of many things that are becoming harmful to chip collecting. We, I feel, need to not only address slabbing but these other activities in the same manner. Like has been done with the above mentioned auctions we all need to come together and make it clear that by cornering the market on a chip, or by slabbing a release you will not get the return you are expecting. My brother always harasses me about how foolish it is to be a collector. He believes that it is a foolish waste of money. His comments are that the collectable I buy only has value if there is another sucker out there who is willing to buy it. So, That Griffey Jr. card that I have is worthless, unless there is a bigger sucker out there than me that is willing to pay what I want for it.

I will not pretend that this will be the total solution. As I said in another post about the issue, that to expect slabbing to totally dissappear is unrealistic. There will always be people who for their foolish misguided reasons will seek to slab their chips. Likewise I am sure that someone will always buy chips from slabbers. However, what can be accomplished is that slabbers can find that there is not the mass demand for their product and services to warrant their promotion of slabbing in this hobby. I missed the last convention so I didn't see it but there has been mention that the slab tables were virtually ignored. That should send an important message to slabbers. If they realize that they might only be able to sell say 20 slabbed chips of a new release, why would they try to acquire 100 chips and have to eat 80 of them. Incidentally, I was referring to 100 chips and $500 as their value, not 500 chips. To sum up, we need to keep the heat on some of the people who will, for greed and money, engage in behaviors that will hurt this hobby. The easiest way to do it is as we have done all along through information and debate and the encouragement of others to not patronize those slabbers and hoarders etc. etc.