>>>!!!"...IMO most of us I'm sure are Glad
our club exists in order to help prevent such
mishaps.....I dont get your reasoning!!...

You actually make my point.

As a collector, you have a lot of resources available to you in order to make an informed buying decision. If you choose not to avail yourself of those resources, then you have nobody to blame but yourself.

Remember that my "reasoning" works both ways. How many collectors do you suppose look for chips and other items being sold at yard sales, flea markets, estate sales, etc where the "seller" is now the uniformed party?

Do you try and "protect" that seller and inform him of the error or do you simply buy the items and run home to post about your good fortune on the chipboard?

As someone pointed out, in some respects, we are all "ignorant buyers" as I wouldn't know a valuable Nevada chip if I saw one. Therefore, I would not buy OR sell such a chip without first trying to become informed about it.

If a "collector" can easily identify the chip as a fake, fantasy, or reproduction, then I have no problem with it.

This is the basic problem I have with "repaired" chips as even an experienced collector could not detect the repair with the naked eye.