Looks like 3 ducks to me.
Maybe our motives need a little 're-capping'
1. Previous x-raying of chips produced results which we couldnt always accurately comprehend. Reason being the only way to 'prove' what the xray was telling us would have been to remove inlays from valuable chips. As those chips did not belong to us this was not practical.
2. Gene and I therefore had various chips fixed and subsequently xrayed in order to determine the accuracy of the xrays. We also purchased a number of chips we considered suspicious and had those xrayed, removed the inlays for confirmation etc.
Between us we outlayed a considerable amount of money on this project. The project also involved Dr Allan Myers who carried out the xrays.
3. BEFORE we went ahead as outlined above, we sought and gained approval of the Club's Board of Directors. A report on our CONCLUSIVE findings was submitted to the board. Extracts of that report and most of the chips involved have at one time or another in the past 10 months been posted on this board. The pictures have been removed until such time that the Board determines our report should go public.
4. I would also point out that Mr Whalen gave his full co-operation in these matters, carried out work for us free of charge, and performed several demonstrations of his work: One to the BOD, one to Gene, and two to myself.
I believe that fully answers your questions. Now its your turn again
Firstly - Have you ever had a chip fixed by Dave Whalen? In view of your comments in this thread it seems to me you should have no problem disclosing same if you have.
It seems that you know more than us about all this. Who are these "multiple people doing it". Im sure the BOD of YOUR club would like to know. You can contact Mike Skelton in confidence at any time.
"I even have the emails to prove it" Are you trying to help the hobby? If so I would suggest you forward these to Mr Skelton if you havnt already done so.
"You would be surprised as to the "king" in the hobby that was trying to sell altered chips without disclosure which I am totally against"
I think you need to discuss this with Mike also as you are obviously not going to go public on this one. What part are you actually against? Selling altered chips without disclosure? Or having chips altered in the first place?
"What is your position?"
Our position is 100% against alteration of chips in the first place, primarily because their future movements cant be guaranteed.
"Frankly I don't care what a collector does with his chips in his collection"
This statement is all very well, but what happens when the chip subsequently changes hands a few times? At some point someone will get greedy and the 'disclosure' will be omitted.
Its been suggested that Mr Whalen marks his alterations in some way. He even had a small die made for this purpose. The problem here is that its pretty easy to have the chip altered for a second time to have the marking removed.
Let me 'pre-empt' a final question. If anyone with any sense reading this post looks back through the thread they may well point out that I had a drilled Sahara chip worth $10 turned into a $800 chip. Below is the back of the chip. Also the scan of the chip before the repair. Finally, the $1 Cal Neva I also showed after I had removed the inlays. No way these chips could ever be mistaken for unaltered.
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