Maybe the value of chips is only restricted to the collectors. For common people this could be only "garbage". If in your town nobody knows the collectors market this could be a worthless (for newspapers) find. Well i think someone has taken some picture, please let us see them.
You, how many chips have you grabbed, just to know?
If your numbers are right it would be around 50.000 chips around, as the $2.5 i've seen sold on ebay the first days are about 700.
It's too possible many finder is holding the high value chips to sell them in the future, hoping to make them more valuable.

This sounds like a bait... if there is a greedy person wanting to buy rarest of the now ultracommon PB chips, to resell them at higher price, this is exactly what you needs to catch him.

Please forgive me but i'm suspicious by nature.

Mauro.