Steve; When these classic A.C. chips came on the market years ago and brought relatively higher prices, I think the prime conditions that existed which caused that to happen were several;

First, there weren't the overabundance of commemorative limited editions to chase after several years ago. Most A.C. collectors at that time began with the current table chips and worked their way back to the obsoletes. Competition was keen for some of the more scarce issues. Today's collector has a hard time just keeping up with the current issues that seem to come out every couple of weeks (or days this past month). Most new collectors coming into the hobby, have a lot of chips to chase before adding twenty year-old chips to their A.C. collections. Their interest in the hobby is maintained with all the new stuff being issued, that they don't need to work their way back as far as a veteran collector who couldn't find anything to add to his/her chip album prior to L.E.'s This is what prompted many an A.C. collector to begin collecting roulettes..... because they had just about everything else issued in Atlantic City at the time.

With the popularity of chip collecting on the rise.... and the publicity being given to the hobby in general....., non-collectors who have read all the success stories about how valuable some chips are and the prices they are bringing, are now going through their dresser drawers and finding these chips that were so scarce a few years ago and bringing them into the market place... such as ebay.

Many former casino employees (waiters, bartenders, waitresses) have also been holding onto these chips for years. They may have realized over the years these chips were no longer available as the properties they used to work at were closed or changed ownerships and changed names, etc. and hung onto them for sentimental value. They probably knew that they were worth slightly more than face value.... but didn't know that some of the chips they had squirreled away were worth the big money that recent newspaper and magazine articles were now touting. These chips came out of their former hiding places and we are now witnessing a softening of the market as the law of supply and demand works it's magic.

In addition, it's no secret that a few of our more influential club members have access to casino cage personel who have allowed some of these formerly "scarce" chips to be sprited out of the vaults. Since this practice has become known, lots of collectors who were not afraid of parting with their hard earned cash for scarce to rare chips only "yesterday" are now becoming gun shy today. Witness the arrowdie craze a couple of short years ago compared to today's justified caution and reluctance. Same thing happened to A.C. chips getting a lot of publicity that were once tough to find... now becoming increasingly available all of a sudden.

There is no question that the introduction of L.E. chips has raised the level of interest in our hobby and have attracted many new collectors who would not have begun collecting if only regular rack chips were the only chips avaiable to collect.

Many of these new collectors don't collect the regular chips; they are only interested in the L.E.'s. I know this to be fact from personal experience, as my popular New Issues Service is loaded with "L.E. only" collectors. They simply don't collect the common everyday rack chips .... and have no interest in the obsolete once-common, now-scarce, older-issue rack chips. There only interest is soley Limited Editions. No interest translates into no demand.... which translates to lower prices on those up to 20 year-old obsolete rack chips currently being offered on ebay at half the price they were bringing a few short years ago. Oh, there are always exceptions, like the truly "rare" $5 and $20 Resorts baccarat chip....... <g>, and others. But that's another story for another time.