CrazyEddie
Full House
I see a systemic inaccuracy within this data: all the chips I want to buy are priced too high.
please fix
thanks
please fix
thanks
Average chip prices 2021 (mostly RHC) (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter inapinch
- Start date
RainmanTrail
Straight Flush
Yes, I saw this thread earlier and considered commenting on my experiences but decided against it initially. When I was new here, I did something similar. I put together a database of chip sales from the classifieds and eBay. It contained a lot of info and had thousands of sales in it. Manufacturer, mold, condition, variation, breakdown, chip sizes, colors, spot patterns, etc. I also had a lot of people who contacted me and who wanted to contribute to the project in order to have it live on as a community resource. Ultimately though, I got a ton of pushback from a very vocal minority who were remarkably opposed to the idea of its existence. They came up with all sorts of reasons to oppose it, and tried to explain away why it would be invalid or borderline useless, etc. Basically, I got shit on for the project big time, and it very much shaped my experiences interacting with people on this site. I've learned a lot since then though about this community, about the individuals who were so adamantly opposed, about how chip transactions go down, both public and private, etc.
After years of experience interacting here and following chip prices closely, I would summarize my viewpoint as follows:
1. Every single concern raised by everyone who was opposed to the idea was and is completely irrelevant to the goal of a project like this (tracking chip prices/valuations over time). The number of chips that change hands "in secret" (none of these are ever truly in secret though once you get to know people - everyone loves to gossip) or "behind the scenes" here is miniscule compared to the number that change hands publicly. And even those that do generally sell for roughly the same amount anyhow. There are definitely exceptions to this, and those who are adamantly opposed to the existence of a resource like this will jump all over it with examples, but in the grand scheme of things, those transactions are irrelevant anyhow, and they have zero effect on the broader market prices. Also, I've learned that even the majority of those private "buddy buddy" insider "friendly" sales eventually end up changing hands again anyhow, at market prices. If you give someone a good deal behind the scenes in this community, you're basically just a sucker, with very very few exceptions. But even the friendly deals that never get taken advantage of or that never eventually get resold for a profit don't really matter anyhow. They still have zero effect on market prices. If you sell someone a $1000 rack of chips for $600 behind the scenes, it doesn't mean the new valuation of those chips is suddenly worth $600. It just means you gave someone a $400 gift along with that rack of chips. Sometimes we like to give each other friendly deals, but ultimately it has zero effect on market prices.
2. Chips almost always sell for their listed prices. Yes, there are exceptions, but those listings are usually pretty easy to identify anyhow. Chip listings that get bumped in perpetuity or where the seller keeps dropping the price and eventually says, "make me an offer" are pretty much the only listings where the actual selling price differs from the original asking price. Once you start to build out a dataset of chip sales, it's pretty easy to spot which listings are overpriced. But even if you were to mistakenly add a sale to the database where the seller was asking too much and the chips never actually changed hands for that price, it still wouldn't matter because it would just be an outlier data point in the database. If people see racks of Paris $1 chips sold for $300, $275, $400, $400, $325, $600, $290, and $350, they're just going to ignore that $600 data point. And even if it's a transaction for a unique rank of chips, it still won't matter. People will look up prices of other chips that they think are of similar value. Ultimately, the buyers are going to come to the same conclusions either way for how much they are willing to spend on chips. All the tool would do is make that data more accessible and save everyone a bunch of time (other than the people building and maintaining the data of course).
3. Everyone who is opposed to the idea of having a resource such as this is acting out of self interest even if they don't realize it (and most of them won't and would argue against this charge). Basically, they want to supress market prices so they can buy chips for less money. They are afraid that a tool such as this might artificially inflate market prices and make the hobby that much more expensive for them (they're wrong). But it irrelevant anyhow. It's futile. The market doesn't care if a database of prior chip sales exists or not. People know how to use the search feature. Everyone can get at least a directionally accurate idea of what chips are worth by spending a few minutes researching prior sales with the search tool. Having a database of sold prices isn't going to change the market. It's just going to make it easier and more convenient for people to lookup past prices (which we all do anyhow).
At the end of the day though, it's A LOT of work to build and maintain a database like this. It's an extremely useful and valuable resource to have though. If you build it, people will use it. My inbox was flooded by people who were interested in it back when I was putting it together after I first joined.
Just be prepared for people to shit on you for building it. You will receive pushback.
Last edited:
I think this is especially true in 2021. In years past, there was probably a whole lot more haggling and offers going on, especially for the sort of chips included in this database.
CrazyEddie
Full House
This conforms to my priors.
RainmanTrail
Straight Flush
People try to lowball sellers regularly, but those who do rarely succeed. They build a reputation for it too. When chips get listed at market prices though, the sellers don't budge. They don't need to. The chips will sell. It's always been this way in my experience. Or at least for the past 7 years since I've been paying attention.
If you're looking through old listings and you see one that just looks like bump city with no price drops posted, you can probably just safely ignore it when looking for comps. And you could just omit it from the database. It's not the the data must be completely comprehensive to be useful and accurate.
Also, it's worth keeping in mind that it's just a resource. It's not like there's some unwritten rule that a rack of chips must sell for the same amount that it sold for last time. Market demand fluctuates constantly. It's a rear view mirror into historical market prices, not a future pricing Bible. There shouldn't be anything threatening about it at all. It's going to be correlated to future prices, but it can't dictate them or even influence them any more than a simple search would.
Last edited:
Circus Circus any version for $1 each? Where? I'll take 1,000 of them
OP
OP
Damn, good catch David. That line is def incorrect, the link to circus chips is in the spreadsheet and the price is actually $4.35 per. I must’ve written that line while drinking and typing, fun times. I’ll get that corrected, thank you again
Last edited:
Stufflymcstuff
Flush
it's also the case that people often underprice items so the fact that it was sold doesn't tell you much. the amount of time passed before someone actually dibsed an item should also be taken into consideration and anything where there are multiple backups should be rejected unless there are no other reference points.
And of course all is subject to change over fairly short periods of time especially ones in low supply. That’s where the speculation gets fun.
RainmanTrail
Straight Flush
For sure. Underpriced listings are far more likely to skew the data away from true market prices because all underpriced chips get sold (almost immediately in fact), whereas overpriced chips never sell by definition.
OP
OP
I can't seem to edit the post listing the abbreviated price list anymore, so I edited the spreadsheet instead. Please refer to it for updates.
I may do more price-collecting at a later time. If I do, I'll share with the community.
I may do more price-collecting at a later time. If I do, I'll share with the community.
BK_Cheques
Sitting Out
Nice spreadsheet, thanks for including some real casino chips!
Create an account or login to comment
You must be a member in order to leave a comment
Create account
Create an account and join our community. It's easy!
Log in
Already have an account? Log in here.
