Slab all you want. I’ll never buy one. And if I did I would rip it out of the slab to touch it and enjoy it and use it as a card capper. I have no interest in collecting hermetically sealed things that look pretty but must be deprived of oxygen and fingerprints at all costs or they lose 20% of their value.

I collect casino chips because people used them. They touched them and gambled with them. And a few made it out of that casino into my hands. Lead silicate is an extraordinarily durable substance. There is not one chip in my collection that has decreased in value because I touched it. I can display them and show them to friends and let them touch them too with no consequence. No additional cracks, flea bites, rim nicks, or discoloration will result from that.

A high res photo of the sides and edges is all I need to determine condition. I don’t need an overpaid grading service to point out wear or imperfections or off center inlays to me.

I think a bigger detriment to our hobby is some chips we just don’t know what’s out there. Is the hoard going to be found? Or were they really destroyed or thrown out? Did some vendor buy them all, sit on them, and refuse to reveal how many there are to maximize profit? I had a CA Brass Elephant 50c chip worth $40-50 or so. Then somebody’s grandkid posted a few hundred of them on Facebook last year and now it is a $5 chip at best. Good news is I bought 100 of them for $180 and use them in my poker game now. Make lemonade from lemons.

So shove slabbing. A Dunes baccarat $20 sold on eBay just fine for $1000 without one last week. Even rarer and more expensive chips also do just fine.