So, this tells me that handmade can be like perfect replication.

Actually being hand carved means that no two chips are identical. That is the beauty of the chips. From a distance (like 2 feet) they do look like perfect clones of each other. Up close differences can be detected.

Take a look at the chips below. The chips were, in all likelihood, part of a 400 to 1000 chip set. It boggles the imagination to think that eagles were carved on both sides of the chip for 400 or more chips. If you look close you can see differences. The rings were done with a lathe (which is how the color is cut away from the center of the chip to produce the perfect colored rims)

Note that the shield on the red eagle has a double rim. It is my theory that when a large chip order was received (such as for the eagles above), more then one carver was assigned. Hence the slight variation in the red eagle.

Dale has assigned different codes to some chips that are alike except differences in some small details. I believe that the chips are actually, in most cases, from the same order just different carvers.