value overall.

Better chips still sell for decent amounts.

People will question why a chip that sold for $10,000 several years back is only worth $5,000 today.

Well first they have to remember that 20 years ago that chip was only valued at a few hundred $'s.

Then the books came out and collectors started driving up prices nearly overnight to double and triple the previous values. Surely we realized that these price gains were unrealistic. Sure enough the prices have come back to earth.

Now several factors come into play in our hobby.

1) New finds come up daily. Chips that were previously thought to be VERY rare show up in boxes from time to time. People are much more weary of spending big money on a chip these days when they have been burned numerous times before.

2) The Economy. People who are looking for an alternative to the stock market will look towards real estate, gold, rare coins, and artwork, but not many people know about chips (Other than us). As the economy gets better, so will collecting in the smaller markets like Casino Collectable's.

3) Limited Editions. Much like what happened with Baseball cards, as soon as casinos saw that there was money to be made by having people walk out the door with LE's, things got crazy. Some casinos started issuing new chips weekly.
While this may be a good thing to get collectors interested in chips, it was the downfall of the LE hobby and exactly what happened in the Baseball Card hobby.

So many of these LE's were made that people lost interest in trying to get them all and what happens when supply is greater than demand..... prices fall.

In my opinion, this has hurt our hobby more than anything else as people who got into collecting thru LE's and believed their collection was going to grow in value were sorely disappointed and turned off by the entire hobby.

4) Greed. I still contend that Chippers are by far the most honest people in any hobby I have dealt with. However, where there is money, there is a potential for people to become greedy. As prices skyrocketed, people started thinking of chip collecting more of a business than a hobby. Nearly every chipper I know has stories of being taken advantage of by another person. While this is in no way rampant among the hobby, there are too many people only here to make a buck and that in my opinion has hurt the hobby.

Of course, these are only my opinions and having been involved with numerous different collectable's in the past, I base my opinions on what I have previously seen.

Bottom line, it WILL get better. Growth will be slow, but that's fine with me as long as it is steady. We all need to do our part in helping get word of our hobby to the rest of the world. The more stories, articles and headlines we can make, the better off our hobby becomes.

Happy Chipping,
Doug