First, I’ve bought many chips from Capt. Banjo and had nothing but delightful experiences with him. I don’t think that anyone has any issue with Jim’s service and I believe that virtually everyone who’s dealt with him would consider him to be an outstanding citizen. I know I do.

On the other hand, I do understand Terry’s perspective about looking after newbies. I believe Terry’s intentions are noble, and I agree with him in that newbies who might be without both experience and price guides might need “protection” against making some of the mistakes that we all have made when starting out in our hobby. Mr. Shafer obviously has a deep devotion to our hobby and especially the new collectors, as illustrated by his suggestion to institute a mentoring program. The issue coming into play here is in applying the “deceptive description” notation to Jim’s auctions, which I feel might be an overextension of Terry’s protective instincts.

In those instances where an egregious error has been made in auction lot descriptions, with regard to either the physical or financial attributes of a chip, we see the board come to life as one and advise the seller of his or her error. I haven’t personally seen this type of activity in any of Jim’s auctions, and I feel, again, that Terry’s protective instincts may have produced an overzealous response. I know that most collectors are, for one reason or another, attracted to one chip guide over the other, and it stands to reason that most eBay sellers will cite a single reference in all of their auctions, outdated or not. I have no problem with a citation of a 4-year-old reference guide, providing that there is no flagrant deception involved.

With regard to the actual valuation of chips, I feel that we have two excellent but static price guides in our hobby. One of them is quite obsolete, but is being updated as we speak. The other is more up to date, but, frankly, was obsolete the day it was published. That said, I will always have the most recent version of each at my fingertips. My suggestion to one and all, however, is that, until such a day that an on-line fluid price guide exists, you must constantly do your homework in order to make intelligent and informed decisions on how much you are willing to pay for each chip that you buy. If you feel you can’t compete with rdrock1 or any of the other deep-pocket collectors that have been especially active of late, you can either wait out the market, or dive into the new one. And, lest we forget, the auction sites are not the only way to buy chips… attend some shows, call some dealers, and visit some of the fine websites that support The Chip Board.