Thanks for posting these questions. As far as the chips go, I have left them they way I dug them up. I did find some that are in pretty good shape, and would not be that hard to clean up. I do not plan on cleaning the chips, but I have been cleaning some of the tokens I found. They are covered in some black crud which was removed by soaking them in white vinegar. I am going to keep some of both of the tokens, cleaned and uncleaned.

Here is a big picture of the chips a few of the $5 are pretty clean