As always, I enjoy talking to you about chips and the hobby and how a simple question on a mold can develop into a full-on discussion about other topics.

The recent Adolfo's find and now Bicycle Bills find are really great for the hobby as these were tough to find and now hopefully some singles will make it out to the rest of commnity. I think what we agreed upon is that relationships and engagement within the hobby are going to become more important than ever before. Luckily I find myself in a large network of friend and fellow hobbyists that help each other out whenever possible. If I find something cool in quantity, I usually ship out sample sets to my closest friends and trade the rest away for stuff I may need. Money, and I'm talking anything under a couple hundred dollars, means little to a collector who either HAS a chip that is rare or NEEDS a chip that is rare. I find that now more than ever trading is what it takes to get a lot of deals done. Rare for Rare you might say.

Yes, set collecting is obviously going to put a hit on chips available...but almost all the set collectors I know are willing to help out someone they know or respect in the hobby. Just this week I had a fellow chipper and set collector that has some quantity of a rare CA card room denomination email me that he was putting one in the mail for me for nothing more than the cost of postage. He could have easily said "Sorry E but I'm working on my 3rd rack and I'm just 8 short" but instead he gifted me one knowing it would help me finish a sample set and a story I am writing on it. The deed of doing something altruistic in the chip world is what we like to refer to as Chip Karma. Whatever good chipping deed you do usually returns to you even greater.

Working on your participation in the hobby community as a whole, and not just your tight circle of friends, is going to be more paramount than ever before. And isn't that how it should be? I know there has been arguing and fighting recently on the boards, and in the hobby in general, and from my perspective my participation in any of that has always been about issues I see that divide the hobby not unite it.

Sometimes it takes a simple morning text from a friend or a conversation on the phone that really makes you realize we are all just chip nerds who love chips and talking about chips.

As my friend likes to say. Let's Make Chipping Fun!

E