Sad to say, but there has been another fallout which started with the recession. Before the recession hit, trading was popular and easy. It was a great way to build a collection because you didn't have to spend too much money. Pick up chips at casinos and trade them. If you had something a bit unusual, a bunch of experienced collectors were happy to give you the better end of the deal to get what they wanted. There were lots of new collectors and more came along to join the hobby. That meant that there were a lot of chips that appealed to them and trading with them was easy.

Then, the recession hit, people left the hobby, fewer and fewer came into the hobby and two other things happened. One, as the big collection sell-offs hit, even experienced collectors, who before were open to new areas, began to focus on specialized areas almost exclusively. They certainly weren't looking for new areas to collect. Two, postal rates began to rise rapidly. The effect of these two events, along with the relative scarcity of new collectors, meant that most collectors were only looking for the uncommon to rare chips they still needed for their core collections. The rising cost of postage meant that fewer collectors wanted to trade for chips they really didn't need or even want, just to help out beginning collector. Sadly, this means that trading has become tough for everyone.

At least, that's how it I see it. On the flip side, a lot of chips are much cheaper than they were, making them affordable to those with moderate hobby spending money. Those with little hobby spending money have it rough.

Michael Siskin