Nice post. I particularly like your ending: "What I am trying to say is....collect for fun and enjoyment and if you collect the right things, then all will work out in the end."

I agree 100%.

I am often asked by a collector trying to decide between two chips, "Which one is better?" That's a tough question and I always try and respond, "Whichever one you like the best." I never recommend collecting for investment. That takes the fun out of it.

It seems the lifespan of the average collector is as follows:

1. Collect $1 chips from all casinos you visit.
2. See a colorful commemorative and take it home.
3. Find out that there are other collectors out there and start collecting LE's and Commemoratives from either your favorite casinos or cities.
4. Collect everything you can get your hands on.
5. Realize you can't collect everything!
6. Discover the history of the older chips and small towns and migrate away from the LE's and into older or current house chips or find a niche and specialize in LE's like Halloween or GO's or 4th of July.

I've seen this scenario played out numerous times. Actually, I lived it!!

Regardless, there is no right or wrong way to collect and it baffles me that some think that their way is right and your way is wrong. I see a strong parallel here but that's a WHOLE other subject and BBS!

I had an interesting conversation a few months ago with a gentleman that has sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars into chip collecting. Sunk, invested, purchased .. whatever the term, that's not the point. He doesn't collect LE's. He stays with the older, higher value chips and he was telling me how many times he's been burned by buying a chip for thousands of dollars only to have a box of them discovered less than a year later and watching the value and price plummet. He laughed and said that maybe the LE collectors were the smart ones. His points were that the prices are low, the quantities are known at the time of the release, and the kicker is that there will never be (except in the case of the shenanigans that used to go on at the Hard Rock) an increase or a major find of a particular chip. In fact, the total number of a particular chip can only decrease in time as chips get destroyed or cashed in!

There are many LE collectors that have a great time collecting their "specialty" LE chip theme. I have several customers that I only hear from once a year (Laughlin River Run, Halloween, etc) and they are collectors just the same as those that order weekly.

"What I am trying to say is....collect for fun and enjoyment and if you collect the right things, then all will work out in the end." - Just had to borrow those words of wisdom!

Tyrus