They Paid How Much??

While the results of the auction held during the recent CCGTCC Convention were impressive, there were at least two deals that took place during convention week that still have many collectors in awe. Interestingly, both involved $25 chips issued by the Sahara in Las Vegas.

The transaction that I have some personal knowledge of involved a collector named Fred Hempel. My wife and I had the opportunity to meet and share a table with Fred and his wife Geri at Greg Susong's ChipBoard Get-Together held at the Gardunos Restaurant inside the Palms. We had a fun time listening to Fred and Geri talk about their travels and some of the chip finds they've found on the road. Then Fred pulled out the $25 Sahara chip that he would later sell. The chip wasn't in pristine condition, and looked much like the green $25 Sahara Tahoe that is fairly common. Fred had described the chip online to me a couple of weeks earlier and I thought it was one listed the The Chip Rack as being worth $500-$600. Even after looking at the chip, I'm still not sure what makes it different than the listed chip, but apparently it was, because a couple of days later Fred was able to sell his chip for $16,000.

By the way, Fred only recently purchased his chip in a group of chips he bought on eBay for an average of less than $2 per chip. Fred took the risk and forked out several hundred dollars for an auction where the seller didn't list chips individually, but only included pictures of them grouped in piles in the listing. His risk in bidding on the auction paid off big and I congratulate him.

The other impressive chip sale was a 4th issue from the Sahara that was in near mint condition. It brought $70,000. Another chip of the same issue but in worse condition is contained in The Platinum Collection, a group of chips that will be auctioned off on eBay from August 18th through September 18th.

The collection, which was on display during the convention, contains more than 2,400 chips and over 3,800 tokens from Nevada casinos in operation over the past 40 years. The value of the collection is estimated at over $1 million. It will be interesting to watch how the bidding for The Platinum Collection goes. I would imagine that some of the high-end collectors may have held back their purchases at the convention a bit in anticipation of wanting to bid on this collection. I would also guess that there will be teams of collectors pooling their resources to bid on the collection.

While the astronomical prices attained for these little clay disks are impressive, they bring to mind the problems with counterfeiting and repair of damaged chips that have plagued the hobby lately. Like fine paintings, chips that sell for tens of thousands of dollars may lead some to explore ways to recreate a chip or "create" an antique. It might not be worth it to counterfeit a chip that will ultimately sell for a few hundred dollars, but when prices reach as high as the examples above, suddenly what seemed cost-prohibitive to a counterfeiter may become quite cost-effective.