As many of you may have read in a post I made yesterday, I finally got the elusive #2 Orange Hard Rock Roulette to complete my 14 piece collection of the Original Hard Rock Roulette chips.
The check for $602.38 for chip #14 went in the mail today.

After I mailed the check, I looked back at how I acquired the 14 chips and how much each one cost me. It's kind of a neat sequel of events and demonstrates how things have changed in chip collecting over the last 10 years.

Below is a listing from my records of when, how and how much I paid for each of the 14 Roulette chips.

1. March 26, 1995 - #1 Green - Trade with another collector - value of trade $3.00.
2. March 26, 1995 - #2 Hot Orange - Trade with another collector - value of trade $3.00.
3. April 30. 1995 - Yellow #1 - "Harvested" from the roulette table - cost $1.00.
4. April 30, 1995 - Purple #2 -"Harvested" from the roulette table - cost $1.00.
5. December 3, 1995 - #1 Orange - Trade with another collector - value of trade $5.00.
6. December 5, 1995 -#1 Purple - Purchased from a Chip Dealer - cost $3.00.
7. May 4, 1999 - #2 Hot Pink - Purchased from a Chip Collector - cost $50.00.(This was the first one of these chips I had been able to acquire in over 31/2 years)
8. July 20, 2000 - #1 Hot Pink - Purchased from a Chip Dealer at the National Convention - cost $40.00. (This was my best day ever for acquiring Hard Rock #'ed Roulettes, I picked up a total of 5 chips from the same Dealer for $40.00 each.)
9. July 20, 2000 - #1 Hot Orange - $40.00
10. July 20, 2000 - #1 Blue - $40.00
11. July 20, 2000 - #2 Green - $40.00.
12. July 20, 2000 - #2 Blue - $40.00.
13. March 2004 - #2 Yellow - Trade and cash deal with another Chip Collector(Over 31/2 years after my purchase of the above listed group of 5 chips) - Total value of deal $350.00.
14. June 19, 2005 - #2 Orange - Ebay Auction - $602.38.

Well that's it - 10 years, 2 months and 25 days, $1218.38 in cash and trades - getting the entire set, Priceless !!!!

If you would have told me 10 years ago that I woulkd pay over $600 for a single chip, I would have told you 'You must be crazy" Well I paid $600 for a chip and I was happy to get it at that price - my maximum bid on ebay for the chip was $888.88.

Average cost per chip = $87.02.

Estimated value of 14 piece set today - who knows for sure, but I would guess between $7,000 and $8,000. As far as I know,probably only 2 or 3 other complete sets of these chips exist in known collections.

This is only a small snap shot of how things have changed in the chip collecting Hobby over the last 10 years - imagine what might happen in the next 10 years!!!

Take care,
"Mr. Roulette"