I won an eBay auction for a bunch of chips in a frame. The image was small and upside down. I thought I saw a couple of decent chips in the frame and won the auction as the only bidder. It turns out the the seller lives only 10 minutes from me, so I made arrangements to pick it up in person. Nice guy, he described himself as a "picker". Some who goes around "picking stuff up" hoping to sell it for a profit. So he made some money on it.

I was hoping that the chips were not glued onto the mat board, but they were. HEAVY SIGH. So I started the removal process and half of the 12 chips came off clean. The other half had glue and mat board stuck to them. So I tried soaking the dirty chips in hot water. Good luck. The glue softened up immediately and was easily removed. The only damage to the chips were that some of the inlays slightly yellowed on the viewed side.

The unexpected surprise is that one of the chips that had no damage was a rare $1 Caribbean chip from the Arusino casino in Aruba. The chips were later used in Bonaire at the Bonasino casino, which had the same owners. The $5 and $25 chips are not common, but they are around. The $1 chip is very hard to find. And this one is in almost uncirculated condition. Quite an unexpected surprise.

The Arusino Casino on the Caribbean ChipGuide
http://www.caribbeanchipguide.com/chip2.php?primarykey=ARUAUS&sort=type