Ok Gang,

Here's some information to help you make up your mind.

Josh claims "onlinedeals@lvcm.com" has stole his scan.

Josh's message here:

ON LINE DEALS STOLE MY SCAN
They must be the most corrupt seller on Ebay. Check out their Auction #157012622 and compare it to the scan below. This is the second time this week that someone has used the same scan without my permission. I am glad to see a fellow chipper has ruined this auction for them. Is it illegal to steal a scan? Any help Travis..

Mark claims he uses a Sony Mavica to make his pictures.

Here is his description on his E-bay:

Another "chip Collectors" Idea of fun
Item #158255463

Dear E-bay buyers and sellers. As many are aware my auctions have been pretty well destroyed by a user on this system. The persons e-mail account for the millions of dollars in false bids came from America Online. Today we received the below pictured e-mail from a person claiming we stole his images and that he was glad our auctions were destroyed. While we do not know whom truly messed with our auctions and cost us hundreds of dollars, we figured we would let YOU see what is going on. Perhaps this person is just an angry at heart person OR perhaps he did it. I don't know for sure BUT I DO know a few things to be fact.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1. We make our OWN pictures using the Sony Mavica units like we have sold here on e-bay. It takes us just a moment to do it. +++++++++++++ 2. We reside near Las Vegas and are able to obtain Casino chips at a whim. ################ 3. This man also sells chips. We are not telling you what to do or to think but, just wanted our bidders to see what has been done and, what THIS E-bay seller thinks of it. We have forward a complaint to E-bay about this and have been working to have the users BARRED from e-bay, no matter if they have NO feedback OR if they have nearly 200 feedbacks, makes no matter to us. Thanks and, PLEASE don't bid on this auction and cos tme MORE, I will only have to cancel your bids, like the others, Thanks, Mark

NOW,

See below the two pictures which I have "stolen" from Josh's web site and Mark's auction. Each one is labeled.

Go to E-bay and note all of Mark's auctions and the photo's that are supplied all are rectangular with different backgrounds. And further note, the many differing variations of focus, definately a camera.

Also note that with a picture from a Sony Mavica digital camera is is difficult to have gotten a pure white background border without having edited the picture. From a scanner is very easy to set the background to white saving you the problem of editing the picture to remove a usual grey background.

Now go to Josh's site where he has links to all of his chips
http://hometown.aol.com/dicechips/hotdog.html
Take a look at several of his chip links...Something obvious keeps showing up.

BIG NOTE HERE IS THAT ALL OF HIS SCANS SHOW THE "BOTTOM RIM" OF THE CHIP EDGE. A dead give away that his pictures were made using the same equipment. Most likely a scanner.

Another note here is that Josh posted a note here about his scan being used by another E-bay Seller and this person admitted to it and cancelled the auction. That auction Started 09/02/99, 00:11:59 PDT with the scan on the left side below and Mark's Started 09/02/99, 16:08:08 PDT appearently well after Josh had his scans available on his web site. And with it already having posted on an E-bay auction it's a relatively simple matter to copy(Just a click away) that image to your own computer.

So judge for yourself who stole(or borrowed without permission) who's picture.

I've made up my mind. Sorry, Mark you loose this one.

However, I have NO problem with someone taking pictures from my site as long as they save them to their hard drives(as appears the case here) and don't use a hypertext link to my site to show them somewhere else on the internet.

If you don't want your pictures used then place some sort of text or small graphic on them and make them impossible to edit without damaging the main picture. So, if your pictures are used you will know it and be able to prove it.

Regarding the Paris chip? Are the gold bradings(for lack of a better term) almost identical on every chip or do they vary from chip to chip making each one unique to itself? Does the white lettering touch the exact same places on the gold brading on every chip? In the scan's below these two chips are "IDENTICAL"

We need another scan here.

Now it's time for all of us to ease back take a big breath and relax, and hopefully all this stuff will come to a pleasant ending. We are seeing how the real truths are unfolding. Notice no name calling here.