In general, I think it is more difficult to "steal" a bargain GOOD chip on Ebay than finding one occasionally in a dealer's inventory at a chip show. Too many people monitoring the listings. But you make a good point about checking for price trends on chips, particularly $100+ chips. For instance, the recent series of Sands baccarat chips attracted alot of attention. On the other hand, a couple of MGM Bicentennial chips (a TCR $400 chip) were offered recently, with one selling for $200, and the other not attracting bids at $275. Timing means a lot, as these chips might indeed sell near their $400 book price at a future chip show. With Ebay, the wild card is always attracting an interested ON-LINE bidder AND an underbidder DURING THE SAME WEEK to push the final bid to its book level.

BTW, I like the myEbay "watch" feature added a few months ago. Allows you to watch up to 20 auctions without placing a bid, and without the hassle of bookmarking the page. Useful for monitoring auctions for prices, and/or for keeping tabs for last minute sniping.