As you know, many of the chips were produced at Atlantic Standard. Jim B had not long taken them over and I guess was not in a position to turn away business.

Gene and I had lunch with Jim recently and he was explaining how Borland, as a major customer, had him pretty much screwed to the ground at something like 39c per chip and Jim could barely make any money on him. He couldnt increase the price so he cut the cost of production by reducing or removing the brass flecks (weight). I was surprised it made that much difference but obviously it did.

This change explains why we can distinguish, for example, later orders of the commemorative chips. Same applies to many of the weave mold chips like your own. The ones without flecks look like injection moulded plastic and me and Gene had concluded before this that Jim had the molds converted from compression to injection. That was not the case. All weave molds ever made are compression clay. The absence of the flecks makes the chips shinier and more plastic like.