A few years ago, Cowans made a design change. The page is a fraction of an inch smaller and the pockets correspondingly smaller. I haven't been able to find the original size and unless you can find a dealer with old stock, will have to live with the new "tight fit" pages. And yes, the plastic is stiffer and tears more easily, probably as a result of a reduction in the amount of plasticizer. Coin collectors don't like PVC plasticizer; chip collectors don't really care.

Warming the pages up before inserting does help, as one other member suggested.

These pages are made for coins in cardboard holders so they expect a thin insert. We use them for chips with no holder. Always a problem when using a product for an application the designer didn't intend or plan for.

Maybe we could do a club order of a million or so pages and get them to redesign the page. Otherwise, plan to destroy a lot of pages trying to get the chips in (I seem to always tear the pocket on chip 29 of 30 ).