points out, a Round Robin (RR) is where one collector with a surplus of traders, asks interested people to sign-up. Typically, the nature of the RR is declared, i.e., chips (what denomination(s) and/or types (roulettes and/or LE's and/or rack, etc.), tokens, swizzle sticks, slot cards, playing cards, etc., etc., etc.

Each person wishing to participate sends his/her snail mail address to the organizer who then re-orders the names (trying to bounce from one part of the country to the other) and then sends out the package of traders to the first person on the list.

The recipient then exchanges, one-for-one, any or all of the items. Although it is not mandatory, it is not uncommon for recipients to express their appreciation for inclusion by leaving an extra (or two) item in the RR before sending to the next recipient. When doing so it is optional to place something in the package that is reserved for the originator, or is just another items to be traded for. In the end the originator may or may not end up with additional pieces.

RR seem to work best when they are 6 - 10 names long. When they include instructions that stipulate the requirements and also provide a space to list what is taken and what is added. That listing greatly reduces the inclusion of junk chips. Unfortunately, it is not enough to just say, "No junk chips."

A RR can take months to make the rounds. To track its movements some organizers require posting to the BB when they get it and when they send it. That is probably some of the message traffic you have seen regarding RR's. Some RR's are quite large and contain a significant amount of money. (I have seen them in the $300 (face-value) range!). Some organizers require insurance.

The prevailing shipping requirement is Priority Mail because it greatly reduces the time that these are in the mail system.

RR's can be costly, on a per chip basis. At 3.75 (or so) for Priority Mail, .40 for Delivery Confirmation and insurance is about $1.00 per every $100.00 in value. So, lets say you pay $4.65 (.50 insurance) to send an RR to the next person. If you only trade 1 chip, you will have inflatted the cost of that chip to you by $4.65, somethinmg you will not likely recoup from a $1.00 chip, especially the type of $1.00 chips that float around in RR's. If, on the other hand, you trade for 10 chips, you will have increased their costy to you by only .46 cents. 20 chips traded equates to .23 cents per chip.

In any of these scenarios, the additional "value" (cost to you to acquire) that is added to your collection is an increased of $4.65. Which is cheaper that flying (or driving) to the various casinos to get the same pieces, but you are better off to trade as many chips as is possible.

Speaking of quantity......In order to trade as many as possible, you need as many traders as possible, to include more than the number of chips in the RR. I say this because the are two very terrible things that can happen when you get an RR. 1.) you only have 2 or 3 traders and you find 10 chips in the RR that you want. 2.) You have 10 traders and they are all duplicates of what the RR already has so you cannot exchange for the ones you don't have!

Been there, done that!

Therefore, whenever I am in any casino, I almost always buy 10 of the best $1 chips I can get to put in my RR Traders pool. To make sure that I don't run low on a good mix of traders on-hand, I will take from an RR a chip or two that I already have, so I use it in another RR later on.

You will also hear about Shotgun RR's. This is a variation on the exchange concept in which an organizer asks for participants (usually 10). He declares what the shotgun is to be loaded with, i.e., 3 - $1 chips, or 2 - $1 chips and 1 - $5 chip, or 5 - $1 chips, or 5 - $5 chips, etc. All the hopefull candidates send in their snail mail address and the organizer then finalizes the list as amailing list. He/she emails the mailing list to all the participants who then go to their traders, pull the neccessary selection of chips (they 'load' each envelope with the correct number and type of chips), and then send all the packages at one time. Theoretically, all participants get instant gratification on the 2nd or 3rd mailing day with an influx of 27 chips (@ 3 chips per participant) in the mailbox. Hence the name Shotgun.

I hope this answers your question, and then some. I now need to get over to the post office as I have a load of Shotgun packages get into the system, as organized by Doug Spears.

Good luck,

Jim Follis