I have watched all the threads on this chip.
There is no and never was a mystery to me.
Number 1, cage people have no clue in most casino's.

The art work was put through the gaming approval process with a 1,000 chip order.
This was done solely to get gaming approval on new art.
Casino's have a habit of forgetting to order $1 chips until they are too low on inventory. A casino the size on NY NY will buy 40,000 $1 a year, maybe more.

A new art order can take up to 6 weeks to get.
An approved art order can sometimes be gotten in 2 weeks.
Future $1 NY NY will be on the new art. Eventually the entire rack will be the now, so called "RARE" chips.
The buyers that are paying big prices for them will not be happy.