"Many dealers said they no longer try to sell chips at shows as they put them up on . Bah humbug."

Travis; I think that is also having an effect on reduced attendance at local club meetings as well for similar reasons.

In addition, high gasoline prices makes it much more economical to stay home and bid in front of a PC monitor. Even attendance at new chip releases is way down. It's sometimes much cheaper to purchase new chip issues from a NIS dealer, rather than to pay the gas, tolls and parking expenses. No longer do LE chips in A.C. sell out in minutes like they used to.

However, having said that, sometimes the only place one can purchase more expensive chips is at chip shows and club meetings. Much of the stuff being offered on is overstocked common material that is being dumped by folks who no longer want to hold on to it as speculative investments going nowhere. In comparison, not too many chips sell for hundreds of dollars on eaby.

I've just sold quite a few of my older New Jersey tokens and medals on a few weeks ago and was pleased with the prices I received for material that I have not looked at in years that was just sitting in cigar boxes in the garage. I'm sure that the token & medal dealer who sells similar items at his retail price was disappointed to see someone selling off his stuff on so cheaply in comparison.