Regarding Slabbing, Steve said
"The real problem / dilemna comes in deciding whom do you trust...whom would we ALL trust?? Personalities and motives may weigh in on how someone would "grade" a chip. What if you spent the money to have a "high-end" chip verified and certified and graded and I go to buy it but don't believe "your" certification because I think that your guy's a cheat (please don't think that I'm addressing this to you)?? I don't own any of those "high end" chips, but if I did, I'd want to have it inspected by someone that I trusted for my own piece of mind, but I would never "slab" it becuase if I sold it to you, I would think that you would want to do your own "verification" and in a "slab", that's hard to do. "

This is the issue I have with all grading of chips, jetons, plaques, whatever.... Who is qualified to be the "grader", and what are the chances the grades would be universally accepted?
Certainly anyone within the hobby who took on the job of grader would be influenced to some degree by friendships, dislike of other collectors, having a "bad day", and maybe even to protect their own collection indirectly.