Ok so I don't noramlly get to personal here but for those of you who read my post last night that is now deleted, I wanted to give you some good news. Honestly I was a little emabarrassed about the situation after I posted it.

I was able to go around to the casinos in Black Hawk and retrieve some of my chips. Of note is the rare $25 you see below. Although Golden Gates is still open this chip was released prior to the comapny that owns it now. In fact one of the cashiers said an employee had thier eyes on it as they had never seen it before and thought it was neat, so I am glad I jumped on getting some stuff back right away.
It really chaps my ass having to do this, i.e pay for the chip twice but the Golden Gates $25 I bought at the casino in 2000, so to spread out 50 bucks over ten years seems worth it to me. Casino managers I talked to were more than sympathetic and will take the time to see what they run across. I was only able to get a 10th of what was stolen, over $1000.00 in face value but it's a start.
As far as the legal aspect of this situation it is undetermined, and thanks for all the emails and responses to my orignal post. I shared my misfortune here because I know so many of you dearly love your chip collection as much as I do.
Your friend and fellow CCGTCC member,
Eric Miller