However...

The practice of destroying chips that are no longer in play rather than dumping them in the desert (or on the collector market) certainly has affected the price of older chips. Look at how cheap the older Sahara LV or Dunes golf-course chips are compared to the Sands LV where the discontinued chips did not get out.

I agree with your comment on most recent issue LE's, since there are dealers now who accumulate enough to meet reasonable collector demand. Still, there are some like the BFTP LE chip at the Imp Palace in Biloxi which will certainly be worth more due to the decision of the casino to destroy the unsold chips. This may have been an example of destruction after an "unreasonably short" time period, to use your term.

DonL