I had been contemplating writing an article on this very subject of chip pricing
for Chequers or the club magizine and still may do so. This seems like an
appropriate time to voice my opinions due to Steve's fine post & query. I agree
with the responses of Michael, John, Gene, Dick & Andy and appreciate your kind
words and opinions regarding TCR & the "Official" price guides. Michael spoke
very well for TCR, Ernie & myself included and made some good points, as did
the other respondees.

I appologize for not responding sooner, but I did not get on in time last night.
I saw the posts for the first time this morn. It may have been for the best as
I have the advantage of seeing the other responses.

Ernie Wheelden is responsible for formulating the TCR value structure and it has
proved to be exactly what we had needed. As Michael stated, we discuss changing
the value codes and ranges quite often, at least a few times every year since
1993. In the past few years, we have considered going farther than the "Z", as
several collectors have asked for ranges on more expensive chips. Our decision
has been to keep it the way it is for the following reasons. TCR is for the
AVERAGE chip collector, primarily. We figure that there are less than 50
collectors which will pay "Z" prices. We weren't sure if we should be the ones
to decide whether the price of a chip should be 1200, 2000, 3500 or 5000.
Collectors who spend four figures for a chip know what they want to pay and will
work out their own deals. I have sold chips at these levels by putting a price
that I would sell my chip for. Some have sold for my price and some have not.
This is how it should be. It becomes an individual thing--how much the person
is willing to pay to have the chip. My friend, Gene Grossblatt will pay more
to get a chip that he wants, than most other collectors will pay. Should we
list those sales as the value of the chip? I really don't have the answer.
I can promise that the three of us will discuss this question before TCR-7
is published and may make the changes that Steve suggested. He made some very
good points that will be considered.

Many of our values are based on auctions. We try to assess the auction as to
the exposure that it reaches in the chip community. These auctions are the
annual club auction (which has the most exposure of them all), Herz', Gaming
Times, Chip-Chat, Coast to Coast, Cheques in the Mail, Casino Collectibles,
Pioneer, James Campiglia, Bob Mera and others as they appear. As you know,
some of these don't reach a large audience so that the chips, especially on
the low end, do not reflect an average value for the chip. If the auction
reaches the same 50 collectors every month and they already have the chips,
they would be less likely to bid. Sometimes a $30 chip will sell for $12 or may not even draw a bid. In these cases, we do not usually reduce the value,
when it is based only on this same repeating auction. The chip will usually
do well when it reaches a newer audience.

The rare chips keep going up & up, due to supply & demand. As many of you have
said, the market on these rare chips is volatile. Todays values are obsolete
tomorrow. Also as some of you have said, it makes a difference if you are selling or selling. I had a discussion with Campiglia a few years ago. James said, "You know, TCR has made it more difficult for me to buy chips to resell. Everybody has your book and I have to pay a lot more to get them now." A few minutes later he said, "Your prices are too low. I put a price on my chip, and the guy looks it up in your book and says that my price is too high." I said,
"James, you want it both ways and you can't have it both ways!" We try to keep
the values a little low as we know that most dealers are going to use the high ends. The higher end chips will continue to be out of reach for most of us, but
we don't want to price all chips beyond the ranges that most collectors are
willing to pay. We made a major overhaul in changing the values in TCR-5.
Many chips had not come up for sale since the early editions. We went over every chip and tried to estimate where the current value should be. This was
not an easy procedure. We will continue to attempt to keep the values as current as possible and hope that most of you are satisfied. We know that
we can't please everyone. We try to please the average collector.

As I have said, thank you all for your responses and your kind words. Your
opinions mean a lot to us and we will continue to listen and try to improve.

Allan Myers