If Nevada chips are your only collecting interest, The Chip Rack is the most up-to-date and complete book, and has the reference #s used by the majority of chippers. For Nevada collectors, if you only buy one book, this is the one to get.

Again, for Nevada collectors...If you like eye-candy (or prefer visuals), "The Official..." guide by Campiglia and Wells is fantastic! There's pictures of different chips in each edition of the book. It doesn't get updated as often as TCR, and doesn't use the numbering system. The focus on this book is house chips, but there are also a few limited edition chips. Unlike TCR, this book does have some chip listings from other gaming jurisdictions (but, since we collect only NV, I haven't paid any attention to that section of the book )

If you also collect dice, there's a couple of Nevada dice books available.

If you like any/all chips, you should get The Gaming Table, which is a comprehensive listing of every known casino; it also lists unknown chips (for example, chips with initials, even if it isn't known where the chips were used).

Best thing to do, IMHO, is to join the CCGTCC and borrow books from the club library. That way you can "try before you buy"...and the cost of membership for a year is less than the cost of most of the books that are available.