The hypothetical question is: If a hoard of a "better" obsolete chip is found, is it ever economically more profitable to destroy part of the hoard and sell the balance of the chips found?

I don't have any particular chip in mind, and frankly I would hate to see any chips intentionally destroyed, but if profit maximization is the seller's ONLY concern, would the following scenario ever occur:

1. A box (100 chips) of a scarce/rare chip is found. It could be any chip, but for purposes of a concrete example, let's make it the $1 Landmark chip -- maroon, C&J mold, neat pic of building on the inlay. A chip with lots of appeal and a pretty "deep" market of $1 collectors/LV collectors/C&J collectors, etc. that have this chip on their potential "want" list if the price is right.
The chip currently lists as a "U" chip ($400+) in TCR. So this box of 100 is worth $40,000 if no adjustment to value would occur with the additional supply found.

2. Obviously, a value adjustment WOULD occur after these 100 chips surface (let's further assume that the seller doesn't play games with the # found). If an extra 100 of this chip hits the market, they could probably ALL be quickly absorbed at $100/each. (Simply my guess. Each chip's supply/demand profile is different.) If $100 is correct, then the box is really worth $10,000.

3. Now here's the question -- is there any portion of the box that could be destroyed, with the remainder sold to collectors, in which the seller could get an aggregate of more than $10,000? As an example, let's say the seller publicly grinds up 50 of the chips [a sickening thought!], and offers the remaining 50 to the market at $250 each, for a total sale of $12,500.

The situation can be applied to any chip, and in fact may work better with a $1000+ chip where, say, 10 extra are found, and in order to keep the price up, 5 are destroyed and 5 marketed to a handful of deep-pocket buyers who would strongly compete for the 5 remaining chips.

I'm not advocating this practice, and would personally NEVER like to see chips destroyed, but I think under the right specific conditions, a FEW extra rare chips found might be worth (in aggregate) more than a larger number of the same chip.

Whaddaya think? And has this ever really happened? Are the economics of chip collecting such that it could happen in the future?

[Just musing here after lunch before I get back to work. ]