Mike,

I have to say, I agree with you on most of those assessments. I know it's a religious issue and we won't all agree, but I think you advocate a position that's pretty logical. Only a couple of areas to debate.

First, and I'm not sure you touched on this directly, but if you lightly sand a cigarette burn off an old USPC monogram poker chip, to me that's just cleaning. What you are left with is all original chip. (No cereal fillers or artificial preservatives.) Whether it has lost a little surfacing to cleaning or just wear on the poker table, it seems no different to me.

The only other thing I don't think I quite agree with is the remove of a hotstamp cancellation. On one hand, you are changing a history of that chip, but not so unlike a good cleaning removes the "dirt" history. (Which, by the way I could see the argument for NOT cleaning chips. I however clean.)

On the other hand, when you remove the cancellation hotstamp, what you are left with is a chip with all its original parts. To me, that's not horribly unlike a chip that been played with some, or cleaned, or dropped on the floor and nicked up. In other words, regardless of the cancellation hotstamp, that chip was still a member of its breed just like any other speciman of that chip. It hasn't been materially altered. Does that make sense?

To all, not just Mike,
Okay... I've argued both sides just to get the discussion moving. (I love a good debate.) Thoughts anyone else??? Anyone else see the removal of a cancellation hotstamp similar to how I describe?

Bryan