Since the authors of the Nevada chip guides are unwilling, or much more likely unable, to keep the book up-to-date it might make sense to look at some other alternatives. I don't think too many people are in disagreement with that. Its important to know what is out there, a good description, and an overall feel for the value of the chip prior to purchasing it, especially as we start to see more higher value chips changing hands. Otherwise the non-seasoned collector may find themselves on the short end of a deal and get discouraged rather quickly. Its happened to me in the old days, it will probably happen again.

Dealing with the content, once its created is not really an issue anymore. There are plenty of places that will print, bind and distribute the content for a fee. The key here is the content creation and management. Wilson has a good idea to use a wiki, althought I dont think that is the right tool, but the idea that a wiki provides of a collaborative effort would probably yield us the best results.

If you think about it, its probably not too difficult to imagine. As chips are released, the information and (hopefully) a scan can be uploaded to a central repository. We have people here who already have experience building/maintaining these types of environments (Brian W with his Collection Library, Greg S with his nevadaones, and Charlie K with his carribeanchips projects -- just to name a few). These can be categorized further and tagged with a catalog number. Then once the content is created, distribution (either online via PDF or online access, or printing via places like White Hall publishing). Of course coming up with a catalog number is another matter. It's simple enough to generate a value but people have been working with an existing system for years and this needs to be taken into consideration one way or another.

Values are another matter all together, and not really my bailiwick. I don't think anyone will argue that they are an important component of a good guide, determining them in the first place and keeping them up-to-date are difficult. One of our colleagues uses ebay to track the prices of chips. And its certainly a good guide to the marketplace but its not the complete story. I don't really have a good answer for that.

If we have to build the data from scratch you are probably talking multiple man years/decades worth of effort - if we can somehow work through either James or K/M/W to get a headstart it would be less, but they own that content and the content is worth something and that needs to be thought through. Don't underestimate this undertaking. So far TCR is 10 editions and as Paul H has said, he already has a lot of chips that have not yet been cataloged. Is this a matter that needs to be taken up by the BoD? Is this a matter than can be done privately? K/M/W has really done some great things for the hobby with their books but maybe the data has gotten too much for the three of them to handle.