Ed Hertel's post below got me to thinking about where chip prices have gone in the last few years and where many of us find ourselves as collectors.

It seems to me that these days, a casino chip is rather like a new car: the minute you drive it off the lot, it loses 25-30% of its value.

Buy a new $5 chip from a dealer for $8, and as soon as you get it, you realize you can't get more than face value for it.

Hard Rock chips are a perfect example. Very few of them sell for more than face value these days.

Please do not take this as a knock against dealers! They incur costs in obtaining chips for us, and they're entitled not only to recoup their expenses, but to make a fair profit as well. But the current expectation of collectors in the hobby seems to be that chips should be sold no higher than face value, and if possible, discounted below that! It seems to me that that kind of bottom-feeding is going to keep depressing chip values and eventually reduce demand to the point that many will lose interest in the hobby.

Do you feel differently?

Michael