Rich - I certainly was not aware that auctions for singles of this chip had been offered on eBay. I think I do a good job of looking at all the listings, it's my business to do so, but I concede that I must have missed any offerings of single chips. My customers generally do not bid on multiple lots of chips, just singles and three color sets, so a lot of 10 chips would probably not interest them. (I've also taught them through experience not to bid against me on chip lots that they know I'll buy, break up into three color sets, and resell on eBay. No collusion here, just experience in trying to get in between me and "scarce" chips.)

I wish this board supported HTML, no bold, no italics, and I feel tongue tied.

If I felt that the chip was readily available on eBay, I would certainly not have used the word rare in describing it. In fact, if you examine my listings, you will probably find chips that are much harder to find that are not described as "rare", because I've been offering them for awhile and any collector can easily find them by examing my current and past listings. In this case, I knew I only had three or four to sell, and thought they were only available through me, so "rare" was used to alert my regular customers that they better not wait around thinking I'll be offering one every week.

David Moore - Are you a lawyer? If not, you should be. That 'ever heard of I'm a sucker for a pretty girl' is one of the slicker backstep turnarounds I've ever heard. We both know you meant your original post to be derogatory to both me and my poor bidder, but that was before you knew what a great guy I am and what a "rare" sense of humor I have. I accept your gesture, if not your logic.

Mr. Benedict, sir. Leaving off the Mr. was a carefully designed attempt to draw you out (or an oversight on my part, you decide), and now that you've surfaced, I'll say that you sold me some of my first chips on eBay 2 1/2 years ago, and played a big part in getting me hooked on these little discs of dried mud. I think you sold me a 3-color set of RARE plain clay chips, and a whole box of ULTRA RARE Charles Lindburg Poker Chips L@@K! You might also have sold me some ordinary large French Mother of Pearl pieces and some common copper/enamel Victorian era specialty chips, and an Ivory or two along the way, I don't really recall. I just remember those RARE inlaid Fleur de Lis's and Star & Crescents you urged me to buy before they were all gone.

In all seriousness, there are two real issues here that deserve to be discussed by open minds:

1. Is it time for the operator of this board to review the policy of allowing specific auctions, and specific buyers and sellers, to be discussed without their knowledge. Most other boards that discuss auction issues stop these "person specific" threads immediatly and won't reopen them until the originator of the thread proves that the parties under discussion have been invited to the board to participate. This is not only for valid legal reasons, but for reasons of common decency and fair play. Who knows, maybe someone planning on bidding on a bunch of my auctions found this thread and made a mental note that Chipguy misrepresents his inventory?

I'd be happy to start a new thread on the subject, or one of you can. I'm the new guy, after all.

2. Mr. Benedict, antique clay chips selling in the under $10 per chip range are hardly comparable to numismatics in the sense that you compare them. I believe there is a standard reference book for stamps and one for coins that rates the relative scarcity of most all of the items, but there is no such thing for antique gambling chips. Dale Seymour's Value Codes are way off base in many cases, as I'm sure he would readily admit, because the advent of the Internet and ebay has made the US one big neighborhood. I seldom if ever refer to them in my listings, there are "a" and "b" codes I still can't find, and "e" codes that are offered by 3 or 4 different sellers on eBay.

All - If I were to post to this board on a regular basis, or meet you all in a clubhouse somewhere, I would use different adjectives to describe different chips. You all come here because you live in a world where a commemorative chip issued last year is worth $400.00, and an illegal club chip from the 1940's may be worth $500.00, and a certain Ivory chip may be worth $5,000.00. If I were to come here and post offering my RARE PS-YH Saddle & Whip chips for $10.00 each, I would deserve to be laughed off these boards.

Likewise, don't come to eBay, where dealers like me are developing the serious collectors of the future, and try to pick apart my language. If I use the word RARE in referring to an under $20.00 chip, remember that I am speaking to a different market. If they don't have one, and can't get one from anyone but me, and I find a limited number of them and use the adjective RARE, I mean exactly that! From their perspective, this IS a rare chip. Please understand that I use rare as an adjective, not as some officially sanctioned rating used to establish and support value.

Take a few minutes and look at some of my antique chip auctions. I work hard to make them friendly, funny, informative, and alluring. I can't tell you the number of people who have started collecting after running across one of my items. They seem to like how I don't make them feel stupid or ignorant about this sub category of antiques, and use plain english to describe the chips, not a bunch of technical jargon, or a non existant rating system for rarity.

Tell you what, I won't judge you guys for paying $500 for a negotiable piece of casino clay made last year for the specific purpose of being taken out of circulation, and you guys don't judge me for using adjectives when addressing Joe Sixpack antqiue collectors that do not comply with an imaginary rating system that I'd be willing to bet you could not agree on as a group.