Welcome to America...... any ceramics ordered through my purview DO HAVE RULES though. I won't allow exact dupes. We mark close chips (if close enough) with UV marks etc. I cant speak for Tina or others on PCF regarding "exact dupes" because as you say some are loose and free with design. I think overall there are way less exact copy folks than those that respect history.

If you look at some of the samples of chips there is no real mold matching for the few folks who have duped Mirage and other chips. I have seen the Mirage chips with no house mold indention or on a completely different mold than Mirage ever produced etc.

We as a hobby cant police all this widespread stuff or engage in making folks follow "rules" as there is no meaningful way to do that. In the end it is the collectors duty to do their due diligence when purchasing a chip. Know what your buying and if there is any question of authenticity make sure you buy with return protections like on eBay etc.

The communities like here and at PokerChipper will come with 1000's of members commenting in the sale threads if they see something funky in a sale. We all have better and funner things to with our collecting time than try and develop unenforceable rules and police every chip sale. All the more reason to unite the chipping communities. As seen here the singles collectors have many assumptions about many aspects of the hobby without looking in at other segments of the hobby.

In particular I mentioned the GPI/Paulson/Angel manufacturing for collectors because it is a common assumption by many that when TRK and Paulson got spanked by the state and enacted a "we only sell to licensed casinos" rule (Paulson) or went out of business (TRK) that they actually practice their own rule, they don't.

I find it amazing that the subject of TRK reproducing exact dupes on clay of closed casinos has faded from the threads, I mean the Sands TRK's that were rare and z rated included many chips that never saw the casino building much less the casino floor. I guess outrage is selective as seen when chips like the Eddies $100's and $500's and all the chips in that run are now called "Accepted Fakes", why is that? Ill tell you why, the hobby has gone from "I collect" to "I protect the value of my chips".

I guess the ceramics are simply the outrage of the day.