Hi Pete,

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{You wrote..}
<<<<"I just could not see the harm in inviting others who share our love in Collecting Gambling Items. ">>>>>

There IS no harm, Pete! They've ALREADY been invited and they've JOINED the CCGTCC in DROVES!!! They collect swizzles, ashtrays, coat hangers, stationery, __AND__ CASINO CHIPS!!

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{You also wrote...}
<<<<<"Steve Mentioned to start your own group. I would NEVER start a seperate group. ">>>>>>

Why not? The Silver Strike folks seem to be a very happy bunch of folks... And to my knowledge, the CCGTCC did not lose a SINGLE MEMBER because of the formation of the SS group. We've probably GAINED membership due to this increased, specialized exposure. They had an interest in Silver Strikes that happened to be a little more enthusiastic than some of the other CCGTCC members - so they took the ball and ran with it!!! They have their own articles in the CCGTCC club magazine, they have their own "swap" table at the Convention, etc. If the matchbook and bar of soap collectors feel like there are enough people are interested in their niche of collectiong, they should organize themselves with people of like interests and succeed or fail on their own merits.

************************ I think the thing that is bothering a lot of the "old

timers" is that this appears to be an attempt by some people to legitimize

THEIR area of collecting on the years of hard work and coat tails of the

CCGTCC!!*******************************************

I think an interesting question would be...

"Are there collectors who collect (casino) swizzle sticks and (casino) matchbooks who COMPLETELY ignore and exclude chips and tokens from their collections?"

If there are any, I've never heard of them.

Most all of us collect some sort of gambling related items other than chips... but our ___common denominator___ are the CASINO CHIPS (and tokens, to a lesser degree).

I just think it would be a bad idea to dilute over 12 years of hard work by our founders by doing a name change. Members can continue collecting all of the ashtrays, matchbooks, and slot cards they want.. but lets hold onto our roots and COMMON INTEREST, Casino Chips (& Tokens).

I'd like to see some members "do the math" on their "Casino Collectibles" collection. What percentage of your collection consists of "CHIPS", and what percentage is "OTHER" ? Whether you figure it by $$ value OR straight number of items - I believe the "OTHER" collections are a very small percentage. Do we really want to sacrifice our core for some fringe collectibles?

Happy CHIP Collecting....

Steve in Albuquerque (R-4048)