Not to change to subject but I just wanted to offer a counter point of view to Archie's comment about eBay...

Archie, I do agree with part of your statement. Just because one auction closes at "X" price, does not mean all of those chips are worth "X". Just using one observation and saying the chip is worth "X" is a bad way to judge the value of any chip. But that same logic holds true for private transactions as well. Just because a chip sold privately for "X" does not mean it's worth "X". In fact, I would argue that since more people did not know about the proposed sell, that the price of a private transaction at value "X" was not "tested" against supply and demand costing theories.

But I do feel that eBay gets a bad rap from time-to-time. I believe it does provide valuable information over time at what a chip might be worth. In my opinion, it is the most public way to sell a chip. Chips are offered to literally hundreds of people at once.

I would be interested in hearing other points of view about this. What would you suggest should be used to determine a chips true value?

Dealer sites? - I would argue that there are a good number of dealer sites but some sites offer chips at prices that are a lot higher than other ways of obtaining the chip.

Private Transactions? - I would argue that since private transactions are just that private, it is even harder to justify what the true value of a chip would be. #1 - since it was not offer to the public, the true price was not "tested". #2 - how does any single person accumulate enough information of all private transactions to come to a valid conclusion about them.

Prices at Chip Shows? - I would argue that the prices can be somewhat inflated to cover the costs associated with the dealer having a booth at the show. Also the number of people is limited to those collecors who attend chip shows.

I agree that ALL chip collectors are not on the internet. But not all chip collectors go to chip shows either. I would guess that more people have exposure to chips via the internet than non-internet sales.

Like I said, I would welcome other points of view on this and look forward to hearing what others think...