As the man accused of having his "finger on the pulse of PCF"... how about a opinionated mission statement on the current chip market.
So with our "top tier buyer" now in the sell off phase and not driving prices sky high, those looking to hold out on "cashing in for top dollar" have likely missed their window. Much like the housing market and stock market...you missed the window on super inflation.
The second tier buyers that came in during the pandemic guns blazing and buying up all of the "good stuff that fell through the cracks" have had time to reflect... they have figured out what their dreams sets are and pushing forward to finish those projects and in turn putting up some massive trade bait to make it happen. They are hitting their 18 - 24 month window of figuring out exactly what they want.
I can tell you that Ben/Brie selling chips is only to build a set of existing chips, I am not cool enough to be in this illuminati club that everyone thinks exists. Just us selling off what we are not using to build something else... quite common in this hobby.
So we all know just before the Holidays is typically a big sell session and becomes a buyers market (happens every year) roll that into late winter/early spring which is Tax season. Lots of folks suddenly have extra funds buring a hole in their pockets, and always folks lookin to get a piece of that extra money.
Let's not forget "global issues" lots of question mark's on where the e economy will go moving forward. This typically causes scares and makes people want to dump their equity and start storing cash in coffee cans... in layman's terms.
Many believe with the top investor bowing out and even trying to move some chips with little success that this market is resetting itself slightly. Those that know they paid heavy inflated prices for what they have are worried they may have to take major losses to recoupe what they can. Hence why many seasoned veteran chippers have just sat back, made some huge profits, no major purchases... just riding the storm of "new incumbent covid chippers" let them flex and spent their money... eventually we have to find the ceiling of this madness and things will naturally balance back out. Some people are going to loose like when any market resets. Its not going to be the veterans riding the storm out either.
Soo sell while the water is still warm! Have we reached the summit? Well 6 - 8 months ago I think
@RivieraDanny Isle set would have sold for $3 - $4 a chip easy and went for sub $2.50 per chip... so the answer is... who knows. Lol TRKs are still selling for insane prices... but definitely seems like things are balancing out a bit.
Also keep in mind that a few of the "big hitters" are still licking their wounds and recovering from the Royal Pricess buy, depleted bank accounts means no extra funds to throw about.
So all of this means sell, sell, sell... and there will always be a few folks that translate that to "there must be another
NAGB in the works!" Pretty damn typical around these parts. I don't think it is true, I think a lot of people look at chips from the "investment" angle and suddenly those values may be on the downward slope and some folks are trying to recoup what they can.
Again just a stupid uneducated redneck construction workers opinion... maybe I am totally out to lunch here, but I don't think I am too far off on that one.