I have taken over as Editor of the CCTN starting with this next issue coming out in November. This is one area I really wanted to work on including in the CCTN. It is far more difficult than I thought it would be. I have been tracking significant ebay sales over the last 4 years. But the problem is that I collect only Las Vegas chips. So the other areas have slipped by me.

The second issue is that obviously ebay is not the only place that chip finds can be distributed. I talked to a few dealers at the last convention about opening a line of communication if they hear about, or come into a discovery of chips. A few were receptive to the idea, others thought it wouldn't be a wise thing to do. Not because they wanted to keep the finds hidden, but because they thought that it might start a panic that would kill the whole segment. Such as what is happening with the Tropicana LV chips now. Obviously there was a big find of certain issues, but it has really killed the entire Tropicana chip category. Everyone is afraid that more boxes will be coming out.

I asked the new owners of the Chip Rack for help in this area as well. I suggested that we create a "In the Marketplace" column in the magazine. If they furnish me with the info on any chip movements up or down, I could publish that information, without giving specific pricing guidelines, and they could promote the new features of their publication. In other words we could publish that a specific chip is trending up in sales and down in pricing on ebay, but for more information on the highs and lows of those prices you will have to subscribe to "The Chip Rack" on-line. This way the club members would get the information quickly, and the Chip Rack would get the word out about their newest features. But understandably they are working very hard on getting these new features and their hard bound copies issued. For now they have declined, but there may be an opportunity to discuss it further once they get their first issues released.

Thanks for the input!
Todd Barrett
#5068-91
San Diego, CA