5) How can I avoid being taken advantage of in a trade?

Will, I might be going out on a limb with this subject, but here is my opinion.

First of all, I've only been stung once by a fellow chipper that I can remember and since he just died recently, that is a moot matter.

I believe that most trades involving expensive chips are with people we have all dealt with before and are usually done between people with great knowledge about chips and with reference material at their disposal. (E.g. The Chip Rack.)

In addition, most of these type of chip trade transactions are done at chip shows.

In most cases, I believe if a person is not happy with their trade, the membership return policy is usually voluntary inforced.

The most common type of trade involves inexpensive chips--(although a relative figure, I would estimate to be less than $10.00 in a few cases, but more in the range of $5.00 or less.)

I have, or should I more accurately say, had a lot of low value chips to trade in the past. They consisted of chips from all over (but mostly California) face values of up to $5.00, and were both current and obsolete.

I personally, put a higher value on current chips (other than from Nevada) than I do obsolete--which is just counterclockwise to most peoples thought. Califoria especially. Rarely will I pay more than $2.00 for any obsolete Califoria chip, but will be willing to pay $5.00 or $6.00 for a current $5.00 chip.

Now most people value their obsolete non-Nevada chips more than they do the current ones. The problem with most California obsoletes is that there are so many of them and so few people collect them.

My point with all this prelude is that it is very difficult for me to get "stung" for very much money or for that matter for anyone else to get stung from me. So what if I trade a current chip for an obsolete or vise-versa. If it's a chip I want, it doesn't matter what I trade for it as I probably paid very little the the chip I trade in the first place.

In the past, it was much easier for bad trades to happen because scanners were not as readily available as they are today. Now, I will not even attempt a trade if I can't see a scan and always scan the chips I have for someone else to see. This is especially true with slot cards as they are very difficult to distinguish without a "look."

Bottom line: Most of the trades you do will be with fellow CC>CC members. The last thing any member wants to happen is to get a reputation of a "bad" trader.

Go forth and trade and do it with confidence (plus a scan) and everything should work out well.