I've deliberately stayed out of this outdated catalog fray ... but since you have opened a new front with your "silly crusade" slabbing comment ... you may have opened a new pandoras box ... along with a whole new round of criticisms.

"6. Your Slabfree crusade is a joke. I come from a baseball card background where graded cards are the top shelf of the business. This will happen in chipping as an experiment despite your objections, but my business acumen tells me it will fail due to pure economic factors ... howeveer, you should let it fall on it's ass in free enterprise, then you can have a celebrated victory without a silly crusade against it."

You are not the only one who has come from a background of baseball card collecting ... or COIN collecting ... where grading abuses are rampant. I've also come from a similar background. Many posts have appeared on this board in the past from former baseball card collectors and frustrated coin collectors damning what the slabbing industry had done to their hobbys and I won't go into those posts here ... but they are available in the bb archives if anyone cares to go back and read them.

A significant number of chip collectors were fearful of what happened in baseball cards and the coin hobby might happen in our hobby should the slabbers take over. Your endorsement of the baseball card slabs would indicate that you are speaking from the perspective of a slabbed card seller, or as a buyer (dealer)? The club has taken a position regarding prohibiting slabbed chips at the convention and advertising in the club magazine ... and so far we have been successful at keeping the slabbers out of our hobby. Your advice is to "let it fall flat on it's ass in free enterprise" ... which I agree with.

I hope that with the continued efforts of Slab Free supporters, the "falling on their ass" senario will arrive much sooner, than later.