Ron, I cannot recall the specific details of this chip cancellation, but it is something along the lines of... Casino orders chips made by Paul-Son Gaming. Paul-Son makes chips. Casino folds (or did not open) before Paul-Son ships chips. Paul-Son, who had retail stores at that time, runs all the chips through a cancellation process (the gold foil, sunburst hot-stamping) and sells them from their retail stores for about 79 cents a piece, regardless of original chip denomination.

The fly in the ointment here is that there were some chips that escaped the cancellation process. I am not sure why, but someone will probably be along to explain how that happened. It might even be along the lines of the chips being delivered to the casino, the casino opened briefly, some chips were taken by collectors or as souvenirs, the casino then folds and chips go back to Paul-Son, who then cancels them and sells them to recoup some costs.

The point being, there are thousands of the cancelled versions in collectors hands and in the hands of home poker enthusiasts (who have large quantities for live poker games). The poker enthusiasts will pay from a $1 to about $1.25 per chip in quantity. Individual chip collects will pay about $1 to $3 for one of these cancelled chips, but not in quantity.

Unfortunately, the hot-stamp can be removed, giving the 'appearance' of an uncancelled chip, which can have a high value. I say 'appearance' because, when the gold foil is removed, there remains an indentation where the foil was. But in scans and low resolution photography, you cannot normally see that missing detail and it is not unusual for people to sell foil removed chips as though they were never cancelled.

Well, that about explains it.

Jim Follis