I think that it's a little too easy to hang this all on Warwick alone. The real problem here (IMHO) is the increasing popularity of anything that says Hard Rock on it, the amount of money that people are willing to pay for it, & finally, the resulting profiteers hoarding the stuff. After doing my usual bookmarked Hard Rock search on eBay this evening, I found a lot of Van Morrison chips listed by folks I had never even heard of.

I really think we ought to give Warwick credit for listening to the chipping community. Back on 10/13/00 he posted:
"it is my intention to find the perfect numbers for these releases that makes them available to all serious collectors, while still maintaining a good resale value."
I think he has tried to do just that, HR has gone from releasing 100 Cinco de Mayo $25s to releasing 750 Van Morrison $25s. That is a definite step in the right direction. There is always going to be someone who isn't going to be happy, it has been me in the past & probably will be me in the future (were you able to get me one, George?<G>). If HR releases twice the number of chips, people would then complain about HR flooding the market. Finally, if someone leaves their new release service over a deal like this, I'd say they were looking for a reason to leave anyway.

I think Gene Trimble said it best in response to the above quotation:
"Warwick,
I have been involved with well over 200 chip releases.
If you can really do the above, we will call you "Houdini Stone." <g>"