I first learned about & the annual convention about a year and a half ago. I wanted to make it out to the convention last year & really rode the fence for a while but ultimately opted out. My primary involvement in the chip world is playable sets - both casino and custom - and I had questions about whether or not the convention would really speak to those interests. I decided to take the plunge this year and am glad I did. I met some good people, bought some neat chips, and ultimately stumbled upon Jerry Vergatos who convinced me to join the club.

I'm now a card-carrying member. Not sure I was a card-carrying member of anything prior to that, save for the military.

So yes, I do support it, but I wasn't an easy sell, and I'm not sure I'll re-up when the time comes. As stated before, my primary interest is playable sets, and the club doesn't seem to focus on that much at all. I also have some significant concerns re: the club's engagement with technology. The last post on the Facebook page is back from September, and if we have a Twitter or Instagram account, I've no idea what the handles are. There's no forums, but instead there's a message board using technology from the 1990's. I understand that one of the goals of the club is to preserve and promote gaming implements from the past, but the technology that drives it needs to be newer than the history we're preserving. At a minimum, there should be a daily post to either Instagram or Twitter (preferably both) with a chip of the day. There's someone on the Chip Board that already posts a chip of the day...there's no reason for that not to also be the case on the various major social media platforms. I have a couple other concerns that might prevent me from re-upping when the time comes, but we can save those for another time.

The one thing that I think being a paying member of the club does is at least tells potential sellers/traders that I'm at least somewhat invested in this, I agree to abide by a code of ethics, and am worthy of doing business with. I've done a number of trades or purchases with Peter Nathan and Reggie Gummer that have added to my snapper and 2v collections, along with many other club members. Had I not been a member, it's possible that some of those deals wouldn't have gone down.

We'll see what the future holds. Now that I've established a reasonable baseline reputation with some of the more active sellers/traders here, and now that I know the club really doesn't focus much on the usability of chips & cards, I'm not sure that there's much the club really has to offer to someone like myself. The amount of chip collecting I do pales in comparison to what others engage in, and for my purposes & level of interest, I can find much of what I need on eBay. But, $40/year - or whatever the annual dues are - isn't a huge amount of money, and the magazine is at least interesting. We'll see. Plenty of time for me to be persuaded again between now and June 2017. Regardless, I'll be going back to the convention next year, and will be coming in on Wednesday to help setup if needed.