Hey Mike!

This is a great hobby. I had a lot of fun doing it . Where I butted most heads with was because I was making a business out of it.

I spend 6 month putting together a book called the chipstar , as far as I know only book ever issued on LE's with a lot of pictures ( sorry can't remember the # of how many ) I sold it for 32.99 i think and made less then 2k on it . But people where upset it was so expensive.
So I never did another one.

I build some of the first website that used shopping carts for casino chips , even dice702.com i set up his first cart system for him.

I promoted shows , when I had my first show it was the highest attendance other then the national convention at the time. People got upset because I made chips for the SHOW NCV and charged $5 for them or you got one free with paid admission.

What really got me in trouble was the slabbing issue . I would not sign the non slapping club or statement what they had. I would sell whatever . I had the silly believe that its america and my customers should have a choice how they want your chips. And I spoke out for that , so basically after that I got attacked on a daily basis by the people that ran that whole anti slapping stuff. I became the enemy which was fine , i rather go with my beliefs any day.

I can write more but it probably will get twisted.

Then. I met the love my life my wife. My parents just got divorced and I was not happy with that , I was getting tired of las vegas. I looked at the hobby and it was mainly older collectors ( which most of those guys where great and good friends and interesting stories ) but we were not working on growth of the club , and our online presence was terrible. A lot of hate and you either went along with the program or you got attacked , very clique . So I got to the point where I did not see a future for this hobby and did not feel like fighting it anymore. And I wanted my investment/collection to grow slowly in value like anything else , or my business for that matter of fact. And I just did not see that happen anymore. I also really wanted to be with my wife and enjoy life so that nite I called pete rizzo and sold him my company names only vegaschips.com , we met the same nite and he bought , I had a strong customer base and it was good for him just to pay for the website. The next day I called Steve cutler and told him I was done with the hobby and I am moving to San Diego . I told him he needed to come over and I make him a deal of a lifetime. I can't remember all the details but I sold him like 30,000 chips and boxes of paper ashtrays dice matchbooks dishes decanters etc.

Then at the end of the month I moved to San Diego. I never looked back , I do miss some of the good friends I had and the chip hunting , but business wise it was the best move I ever made. In my opinion it was a dead end business.

So there you go