I am extremely new to the hobby, and just wrote an article on the Hard Rock Sammy Hagar $25 chip for Las Vegas City Life. But I am a bit more old-school when it comes to collecting. I picked up extra money in college ('86 - '90) sorting through cases of baseball cards for the important cards while tossing the "commons" to the side. ($25/hour was a lot of cash back then)

If you want my opinion, it's pretty simple. COllectors get started in a hobby picking up things that weren't geared to collecting. If you get into it, and there are some rarities, they're part of the romance of the hobby. No one complains about not getting that "upside-down airplane" postage stamp, or the copper penny in the steel mode from the war years. They make the hobby fun.

The minute a hobby gets commercialized, the manufacturers need to come up with a way to keep rarities coming. If not, the hobby dies. Do you know of anyone who collects stamps or coins from the last 2 decades -- or at least anyone who gets excited over them???? No!! Because they're boring. THere are a million people buying everything. That's why people moved to cards, and when they got boring, the card companies went nuts with stupid rare inserts to keep people in the hobby.

Chips are now approaching that level of commercialism, and the manufacturers are fulfilling a need. If you have the old stuff from before this era, count yourself lucky. This is a turning point, but it's necessary to grow the hobby. New collectors won't get excited about owning what everyone else has.

The sad but true fact is that no one is interested in a hobby where everyone has everything. I don't approve of it, but I recognize the symptoms.

Just my opinion. I welcome oposing ones.

Al