Hi, and thanks for the excellent feedback. I don't expect this to become a full time profession, but it might be kinda cool if I were reasonably busy with it over time. Think of all the cool chips I'd get to look at.

If you factor in set up time, etc. even a speedy input might take 5 minutes per chip on average? That's 12 chips an hour @ $25 cash per hour = $2 per chip, plus per diem, etc. For expensive chips, a $2 cost is manageable; for common chips, it would be a noticeable fraction of value. (Though if it prevented duplicate buys in the future, that would add value for the service.)

I had thought about that. Part of my service would be to find out what the client wants and whittle down what I do to meet those needs. For instance, some people might want every chip detail plugged into a spreadsheet. Others might just want a plain list of TCR#s (and maybe quantity if applicable). In the recent treasure hunt, I identified 20 chips (some of them crazy difficult) in 49min. I'm confident I can at least double that for collections that have "normal" chips requiring much simpler lookups and enter, say, 5 fields of data (casino name, city, state, TCR/CG#, book value, for instance).

Another market opportunity to consider: When chippers pass away and relatives / estate executors have a bunch of chips to organize and market, a service that helps them to assemble sales lists might be useful. Get some competition in bidding for parts of the collection, rather than one dealer buying everything, but at a lower price.

Good idea. Now... how to do it without being an ambulance chaser, so to speak.

One small suggestion -- if you primarily use a spreadsheet to itemize the collection, then individual pics by camera may not be needed. Instead, use a flatbed scanner to capture images at a page at a time. The scanned pages also easier for marketing a whole collection, if that's the intent.

Good suggestion. I would totally leave that up to the customer (speed vs. detail).

Good luck with your business idea. Hope it's successful for you. (If you launch the business, do a business card to replace your current card in the monthly club newsletters.)

Yeah, I only put my regular business card up there because CCA was gracious enough to offer the space for free. Haven't been inundated with calls for internet service (even though I cover 38 states with speeds up to a gigabit bidiretionally - shameless plug). Next thing you know, I'll be getting personal chips and entering COTY competitions. So, yes, a change to the biz card will be in order.

Thanks again!