After writing the article in the recent club magazine about Burgel's Estate sale, I have been thinking a little about the different reception...

Let's walk through some similarities and differences:

Similarities:
- Both made and sold chips (and Burgel other items like ashtrays and key fobs) that appear to the casual collector to have been from ("used in") casinos..but were not.
- Both also made and sold other chips that near (or exact) replicas of ones used in casinos. These were deliberately made to fool even expert collectors.
- Neither in their lifetimes admitted to the problem with making these replicas

Differences:
- Borland was did his thing over 30 years ago; Burgel did his thing right up until 2024 (and Burgel did it for much longer)
- All of Borland chips were high quality products, they easily could have been used casinos; many of Burgel's chips were lower quality chips with plastic sticker inlays
- Many people were not in the hobby in Borland's day; many people today dealt with Burgel at some point, often with negative experiences See:
http://www.thechipboard.com/index.cgi/page/1/md/read/id/1753428/sbj/so-burgel-should-not-be-inducted-hof/

So I don't have an answer...yet.

What am I missing in the similarities and differences?

Some references: David Spragg's Marlow Chips site has some incredible documentation on Borland and other questionable chips:
http://www.marlowcasinochips.com/links/davidspragg/davidspragg.htm