Carol, for a few years while I was living in Southern California, we use to go on chip runs from Orange county all the way up to Seattle, stopping in between 50 and 55 or so casinos to pick up trading chips. I would spend between $40.00 and $100.00 at each casino to get what I thought was enough chips of different amounts to satisfy all of my trading partners. So you see, I know what the cost is to get these chips.

Just a few months ago, I ran into you and David in both the Gila River Casino and the Sands in Reno. You were on an extensive chip and slot card run spanning at least 5 states. Again, I know what the cost was to incur such a trip.

Even though you are quite active on e-bay, I can't figure out how you take in enough money just to break even as your prices are more than fair. I believe I would be one of the last persons to deny you a profit for all the time, work and expense you encounter to get these chips for us. As you know, and to the disappointment of many of your neighbors, you are my sole source of chips and cards in the Northwest area and I am so delighted about that.

But that has nothing to do with my subject.

Again, my big complaint are excessive shipping charges being requested by many sellers. And to be more specific, since this is being written on the Slot card bulletin Board, I am at this time only concerned with slot cards.

There a some slot card sellers charging $1.25 to $1.75 to send 1 slot card or room key in an envelope that cost at most $0.02¢ plus $0.34¢ postage. Now that's a bunch of bull*%#@.

I am not a new chip service provider, nor do I sell or trade as much as you do, but I can safely say I have approximately 25 or so used padded envelopes ready for reuse at any one time. I do not need to purchase new envelopes at $0.11¢ each but if I did, that still would not justify such a high postage fee.

As far as I know, I have yet to lose a regular 3 x 6 envelope with as many as 11 cards weighing 1.9 oz in them at a total cost of $0.57¢.

I figure the e-bay cost along with everything else and add that on to my minimum bidding price.

I know it may come out the same way, but I'd rather put a minimum bid on a single common named card at $2.00 and no shipping charge, then $0.75¢ and $1.25¢ postage and handling. It just goes against my grain to pay excess shipping charges.

Does it really make sense for a person to pay more for postage that for the merchandise itself? I don't think so.

POSTAGE FREE CHIPPERS, UNITE