Your point brings up something I was going to say in my last point on this sub-subject.

There is a difference between "CASINO CHIPS" I make that differenciation from Poker chips as the casino chips were actually in regulated play in a legal casino and thus accounting is made of them. Illegal Casino Chips, another sub-catagory of our collecting could be different. I don't know though as I am not experienced in that field.

However, my point is that with casino chips they are produced with a known quantity. Unless there is some fraud or other illegal adjustment to the numbers or quantities. When retired they are accounted for again and the number of chips on hand are recorded and they are distroyed. That leaves a little math and a known number of remaining chips in existance. There is some uncertainty though how many of those might be in some travelers dresser drawer or keepsake box or a collectors collection or in a box in the basement of some poker player who died before he could cash them in and never told his family. Thus the rarity of a chip can often be projected.

However I question the ability with some items, like ashtrays, where a casino or hotel might have produced a known number of them, Maybe thousands. However there is no recording of such items for loss, damage or destruction. Therefore one might not know how may of them walked out with patrons looking for a keepsake or how many were tossed when a casino went out of business, changed names, changed their image etc. I would think that, moreso than chips, items like this can be found to be in large quantity when some guy moves out of his house and finds that case or two of them in his basement that he salvaged from a dumpster.

I have heard of this a couple times with chips, where someone runs into a box of an old retired, thought to be rare chip. I recall a controversy over someone trickling them out so that people wouldn't notice that there were more of them than originally thought??? However I would think it would be more likely with stuff like ashtrays that a hoard of collectable items could be discovered that would effect the rarity of some items.

In closing, I am now thinking of some Atlanta Olympic collectables that have been showing up on eBay in Wholesale Lots where there are warehouses full of them. Statues and other items that people thought were valued sports collectables might be available by the thousands. I recall one lot of statues selling for some reduculously low price but the buyer is responsible for the FREIGHT. We are talking a semi load of these things. I just saw another lot of Olympic stuff (Atlanta Also). A large quantity of boxes, (Cases) of items but smaller and probably not as much of a burden to ship.