... which makes it unethical:

"to possess;
to possess for sale or trade;
to transport, import, sell or trade, furnish or give away;
to offer to transport, import, sell or trade, furnish or give away; or
to attempt to transport, import, sell or trade, furnish or give away ...

... any counterfeit, fake, fantasy, remanufactured, repaired, restored or otherwise altered ...

... casino chip, token or silver strike, or any other casino or gambling collectible."

After all, similar restrictions have worked extremely well in eliminating the drug problem in this country.

Seriously, a step back and some reflection might be appropriate here.

Some people have posted critical messages here regarding the conduct of David Whalen in "altering" some brass core chips (and have, either directly or by inference, also criticized the conclusions I reached in my claims inquiry about that conduct).

Some of these messages have gone so far as to say that even if this was done without current intent to deceive, it was somehow improper because of the possibility of future deceptive sales, as has happened with the Borland chips, coin inlays fakes, fantasy chips, etc.

To which I would say, if the possibility of future misconduct by some other person is the standard by which we are to judge each other now, perhaps we should all look first at our own collections.

Every person who has in his collection a Borland or coin inlay fake, a fantasy chip, a known counterfeit or any other chip of questionable or doubtful authenticity is harboring the same possibility of future misconduct by some other person.

By the standard being suggested for dealing with the brass cores, doesn't that make each of us as guilty as the person who originally made the chips in our collections?

Sure, we know they're fakes. But what happens down the road when they've passed into other hands? Isn't it possible that someday, somewhere, some person is going to be selling those chips, perhaps intentionally and perhaps inadvertently, without revealing their true nature.

So, how do we justify our own conduct in not only keeping but actively seeking more (as some of us do) of these chips. Aren't we being more than a little hypocritical when we try, for example, to put together a complete set of Borlands, while simultaneously complaining that the mere existence of such chips creates the possibility of future harm.

To be consistent and not hypocritical, shouldn't we all be taking our counterfeits, fakes, etc., and publically destroying them, rather than putting them in our display cases. After all, that is THE ONLY WAY we can be sure that they will not be used, at some unknown time in the future by some unknown person, to deceive some other unsuspecting person.

If we don't do so, are we really all that different than a person who, without intent to deceive, makes them to begin with?

And PLEASE note the qualifier "without intent to deceive". Obviously, anyone who makes such chips with intent to pass them as real is in an entirely different category.

----- jim o\-S