Years ago things were different. Old time collectors talk nostalgically about how great things were....trading one stack of chips for another and how modestly priced were some very rare chips. I remember the absolutely ridiculous bid of $3500 for the $5 Golden Goose chip in 1994 (I think.) Anyway a terrific improvement in our hobby is the vast amount of pretty accurate information available about obsolete chips. And the process is continuous. One example is Phil Jensen's memories of long gone small town casinos.
There are fake chips in our hobby. I remember mistakenly buying a number of Borlands from a pawn shop just off of Fremont. The Club Website, the ChipGuide and The Chip Rack all try and document the most egregious of the fakes. So it's somewhat sad for me to see an auction like this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/403365051207?hash=item5dea6e3b47:g:yeoAAOSwayxhv4JF
I don't know if the seller is unaware that the chip is a fake. I have in the past let sellers know about fake chips they've put in auction and usually get no response. The chip has 14 bids from 3 bidders and is bid at $41 with two hours left. It would be nice to get the word to these bidders that there's a Club and that there are free reference sources. Finally what's a "private listing" that's protects the bidder's identity and how is it different from a regular auction that also conceals the bidder's identity?
By the way......a belated Merry Christmas.