What makes an item obsolete?

I perter to use the term "Retired" if the casino is still open unless the chip or token has been "OFFICIALLY" discontinued by the casino or the casino has "CLOSED". Here I am referring to only Nevada Casinos.

Obsolete - to most chip and token collectors make us believe that the chip or token will never be used again by the casino. Although, the dictionary reveals:
1 a : no longer in use or no longer useful b : of a kind or style no longer current : OLD-FASHIONED

This is still an accurate term.

I've seen and heard of several casino's which have pulled their Silver Strike machines, and sellers and collectors calling them "obsolete", only to be confronted with the casino putting the machines back out on the floor with the same tokens as before.

There has been one casino which removed it's table games for several years and brought the games back along with their original chips. (Klondike, if memory serves me - Memory not so good anymore <G>)

There was one California card room we know of which used another casino's chips when they opened. I am not familiar with CA chips so I don't know if the chips from the other casino were "obsolete" or "active" at the time they were being used.

My other concern for using the term "obsolete" with regard to the Silver Strikes is that while the "Revised" tokens are being put out now the other tokens are still redeemable and put back into play by the casino. I see one current auction for a Silver Strike on E-bay where the term obsolete is used to describe the token. Although the casino may have pulled the machine and the token is of the non revised type, what if the casino puts the machine back into play? The casino still redeems these older tokens and most likely would put them back into play along with the revised type.

Now as for using all the terms: Rare, Obsolete, Retired, Scarce, Hard-to-Find - along with the verbs in front of them(extremely, very, etc.) on auction lots is just the sellers attempt to make the lots look more desirable(valuable), EVEN IF THEY ARE! But the problem as I see it is the uninformed buyers or novices essentially overbidding each other.

How many times have we seen the word "rare"or "obsolete" used in conjunction with the "fantasy chips"?<G>

My preference on the auction sites would be to see these terms "terminated" in the TITLE descriptions and place in the body of the seller's main description. Boy am I stretching it here! <BG>

The terms on E-bay at the time of this post revealed:
68234 items found for the search "rare".
314 items found for the search "obsolete".
1487 items found for the search "hard to find".
3817 items found for the search "scarce".
8372 items found for the search "retired".

Now here's a question I have regarding the original Flamingo Hilton Rockette's Chip and Silver Strike.

Although they were "pulled from play" were they "officially discontinued" by the casino? Could you take one of the chips and play it on the table? Could you still redeem the chip or silver strike at the cage?

If the answer would be yes to the above questions what term should be used by the collectors to describe them. God forbid a Rockette's($500 value)Silver Strike to be redeemed! It just might get stuck back into play, the way the Silver Strikes are handled.<G>