Nothing that is made to be collected stays collectable for long. The objects in any field of collecting that hold their value are the ones that are made to be used.

These Hard Rock, Hooters, and any other LE chips that cause such a stir for a while are the baseball cards of the future. The chips that were designed and made to be tossed on a table and used in a game will always be valuable momentos of the games and times in which they were used, and so hold their value.

Big investors and slabbers may hurt the hobby but even they cannot destroy the intrinsic value of the REAL chips any more than they ruined the value of old coins.