Brien thank your for your kind words. I apologize for being "rude" as I am called to start out. I will try to address your valid questions.

I am not a coin collector other than saving some silver dollars that the tooth fairy brought me when I was a kid. I like these & when cheap could say have bought 20 over the last 20 years. I am not involved in coins to know about any negative affect it has actually caused. I know prices of coins are very high for very rare high grade & high demand items. I know gold of course or silver dollars are more valuable than pennies. I have read some posts & seen some articles posted on this forum telling of the negative impact that slabbing has had on coins. WHy is it such a huge hobby then? Why are the items so expensive? Why is slabbbing so so bad? I know there are a million answers but no solid proof. It can not be bad just because an extra $20 is added for a slab. That is a service. I feel because with knowing how many are out there the demand increases & rare items go up. In slabbing say millions of coins the coin companies or slabbers know about how many exist. Market manipulation I have heard about sounds bad but wouldn't coin dealers get boycotted right away? They would in our small hobby! I feel one thing that the slab makes the item a different item. Maybe I can write more later when I think of why I have decided this. (the beach warped my brain today- and last night. See my other late night post).

Luckily when we wrote our first book in 98 to 99 we were able to view many top collections to see first hand the rarity. I continually add information daily. I am serious, I follow the market daily. I am the most knowledgeable person on chips. I know that is a bold statement but that is a fact! Through writting a book that I was asked to write for many years I have gained further respect. I wanted to share my information & I paid to do this. (So did Jesus) I paid monetarily & through loosing some friends that think I have alterior motives. (See post to Bob Gabel). No no I dont want to get into religion. Just making a point. I will answer no posts on religion!

I feel what ICG does is their business. When a guy from their both came over to introduce himself at the Super Bowl show I told him I feel they have gone about this all wrong & are damaging to the hobby. He said he wanted to send me some slabbed chips to view that have been graded. He valued my opinion as I wrote the book & grading chart. Through curiousity I said fine. I do want to see what they think but this has nothing to do with me giving them chips to slab.
I never received chips. In another post I said possibly they wont show up at the show & they will not be trying to sell us their product. I have not heard a thing from them or anyone I know mention them or anything on this board since the Super bowl show. Maybe that was enough medicine for them?

As for a third book. I called Schiffer publishing today. I talked to someone about copyrights. I could not get the answer I need so I am putting it in writting to the owner. They also are not ready to give an answer if & when I will be asked to produce a third book. I asked did this go well enough? I was told we can't answer that yet. Only time will tell I guess. I would rather do one every other year. I had a freind who is a well known dealer & collector give me something to think about. If a book was done every other year & Chip Rack was done for the inbetween years would that make sense? Of course it would. That's an idea. One I have not been able to do anything with yet. Our book came out in September. It has been jsut 7 months. Marketing in the main place, Vegas, has been slow. Luckily online national chain bookstores do carry it as with Amazon. If you walk in to a major book store in Vegas it is supposed to be on the shelf. To market to them a book had to be professional & not spiral bound, whereas you would not be able to see the name due to the spirals & the way it is displayed.