I've only been involved in various forms of "chipping" for less than 10 years.

Granted, my first experience was at the "set" level, not "singles". And also, I came in during a small bit of a lull.

But almost since that first day, I have seen an upswing in chipping across the board - from singles to sets.

The market has fluctuated, prices rised and decreased, but the pure number of people involved and competition for chipsets, samples, and singles, has dramatically increased.

Something almost all collectibles of any sort saw was an increase during/due to Covid, but many of those rising prices and collectors stayed up afterwards.

Whether it be new online chip dealers that exploded in growth, increase in collectors for sets or singles, increase of chippers looking for obscure/high end chips - the overall *feel* of the hobby is that it is more active than ever, with the flip side of the coin making it a potentially difficult time to obtain what you're looking for (of course dependent on what that is).

Of course I could always be wrong, but it does seem to be the prevailing feeling with most chip folk I interact with. If there's disconnect, I would softly suggest that being due to the difficulties of penetration for things like in person chip shows and not as user friendly technology on things like TCB and various CCA items (I know that's already being looked at and improved!).