How I started collecting… Not very romantic, but here goes.

I bought and sold things on ebay here and there before I got into chipping. One day while looking around on ebay I noticed a Las Vegas keychain that had active bidding that was over 2K. Turns out it was an early Sands chip that had a whole drilled in it for the keychain. I had to know more about this whole casino chip thing.
I eventually figured out I needed a reference guide so I sent for “The Chip Rack” and “The Official US Casino Price Guide” Somehow I got a hold of James himself and he said he would send me a two books, the first and second editions of his book were on there way. I received “The Chip Rack” first, I remember opening it and thinking huh… “This is a lot of stuff that I’m never going to understand.” Couldn’t for the life of me figure the different number patterns and why they were so different for even the same casino. I still don’t understand that system. lol… I was a little disappointed because I knew there was a long road before I could figure out this casino chip thing.
When The Official Price Guide showed up I found it easy to understand and I could understand a lot better looking at the pictures. It was kind of what I needed to get me interested enough to go back to the TCR and try to decipher some of the codes. One thing that I couldn't figure out was values compared to rarity, I was struck how many of these little pieces of clay were "what I would consider" rare and they were affordable.
With the Price Guide I could easily look online at ebay auctions and see what things were selling for and what the book said. Many online guides were still developing at this time, but (online) there was more information out there than I had time to get into. After meeting other collectors during a FL club meeting I was hooked.
I decided to go to the big convention in Vegas. It was overwhelming. There was so much to learn and everything was interesting. I remember there was a newbie seminar by two authors of the books mentioned above. Michael opened with a story about hunting for chips in an old antique store deep in the middle of nowheres-ville. As he moved from case to case he spotted chips and they were old chips… and they were Vegas chips! Can you guess what happened next?