Only my opinion and Mr P will be welcome to his which may also be based on real experiences with clients.

My take:"if "Fred" drives an hour to Atlantic City and buys 50 chips ... every time a new chip is released.
"Fred" keeps one chip for his collection and puts the other 49 on ebay and claims "it's just a hobby ... I don't need to report that". "

IRS does not buy that - 98% of what Fred bought was for re-sale. Not a hobby - its a business.

"Suppose it's not 50 chips that Fred buys, but a couple of dozen chips each time a new LE is issued ... to be put on ebay. Fred's defense to the IRS agent is; ... "they were only duplicates I was trying to sell so that I could purchase more chips for my hobby.""

Might get away with this one - 50/50. Inspectors vary and my experience is if you are paying some tax or are paying 'proper' tax from another vocation they will let it go.

Its a fine line - rather like narcotics - when does 'for personal use' become 'dealing' or 'supplying'. Thats why I used my extreme example of 8000 chips. Its easy to justify all my trip costs from when I leave the house to when I return.

BTW - I thought you didnt sell them through ebay and if you get stopped leaving you could always give your name as 'Fred'