One of the best ways of learning chips is buying, selling and trading, I buy, sell and trade all the time. I think most people that sell chips here just want to sell them and don't care what you do with them, but there are exceptions.

Some chippers will only do one or the other and can look down on others driving chip prices up. Obviously it is great when prices go up on chips you have in your collection but it stinks when you don't have a chip that you need and it is getting out of your economic range. (double edge sword)

As for selling, I often lower my prices to someone that I know the chip is for their collections and not for "value" or resale. I'm a romantic...lol.

Sometimes I'll offer chips on this board with a request for "no ebay flips". If I find 5 scarce chips, I may offer a few for sale here, but it stinks when someone I sell a chip to turns around and sells it on ebay before I can even get my own dupe for sale. I probably wouldn't sell to them again because I often will offer chips here on this board as a privilege to chip board participants. I guess you can't really control it, however, you will find in the long run, there is a big difference between buying and selling from fellow chippers rather than from someone using chips and chip collectors to profit from the hobby and not contribute to the hobby in other ways.

You will find chip collecting is a hobby like no other because of the unique people involved who value friendship and respect over profits.