Ok let me try to answer all the questions so far in this one feedback.

First of all, regarding Allen's original post inquiring about a trade for other millennium cruise ship chips. I would love to have one of those chips but did not have any Cruise ship chips to trade Allen for his. Therefore, I posted another request below his, asking for the same chip from someone else for a trade of a different chip of mine that one might like. In the same posting I offered to pay my regular offering price of $7.00 for the chip to someone else as I felt I could not or would not pay $15.00 for it. I never intentionally meant to disparage Allen in any way. I never even mentioned his name, just piggybacked on his post; a process I and others have done many times in the past.

Then the sarcastic remark was thrown at me and I answered back. As you can see, I am not one of those persons who will wait for the spin doctors or polls to be taken before I say the politically correct response.

As far as attacking other dealers, this is NOT my intent. Your right to make a profit is unchallanged. I will be the last one to critize the capitalistic system as I enjoyed participating in it for many years and in some cases, still do. Supply and demand. Great. Do your thing. There are many people collecting chips that will pay any asking price requested by various vendors. Apparently there are a lot of collectors who have deep pockets and care less what they spend and with enough sellers to take advantage of that particular breed of individual.

Then there are others, such as I, and may I add at least an additional 91 people, that I have on my current trading roster that are looking for chips at the same prices I am seeking. As I mentioned, we are two different groups.

The dealers are a faction of the club that is necessary and if any on us want a particular chip that is not widely available at a low price, then we will pay the dealer price.

I and many of the people I trade with are not looking for "investment" chips. Just chips we think are pretty, enjoy looking at and owning, trading and in general having a lot of fun. For many of us it is not a business. And just so no one reads anything else into this paragraph I will state my position once again and clearly. I AM NOT VILIFING ANY DEALERS. If anyone thinks I am traducing dealers, it is all in your mind.

On the last point, regarding the selling of chips to the public via Ebay as opposed to selling to club members, I stick to my initial statement. I suppose this last part of the post could linger on for quite a while with different philosphies being expressed.

As I mentioned to Archie a long time ago, I am not normally a joiner of any organized club or organization. As a newbie in this club, I was under the impression (an apparently an incorrect one) that as members of a club with similiar interest, we have or should have some sort of comradeship between us and that we could rely upon our fellow members for not only good advice (which we certainly do get) but also the exchange of chips (even if sold) at a price just slightly above cost.

If one wants to get top dollar for his chips (which is everyone right) then just put them on Ebay and let the market prevail.

To recap this whole thing. This is the same agrument we've had before and just as none of us has changed our minds months ago, I doubt if any of us will do so now. Dealers and collectors are both necessary for the hobby to exist. I only hope that we can have the same agrument 20 years from now and we're all around to ponder the question.