I did post some new Las Vegas room keys on this board recently and had "limited" response. I assume part of that is because people only collect certain casinos (as opposed to all casinos). I could also assume it's because of the price I charge. Well, my contact in Las Vegas spends his time, efforts, gas and "tip" money to get the keys and charges me $3 for the 1st one and $2 for the others which I then offer to other collectors for $2. This is helping other collectors without making a profit (making a profit is not why I do it). I assume people would rather pay only $1 for them, but that's not going to happen. In my book, paying $2 for them is certainly a lot cheaper than flying to Las Vegas, paying for a hotel and rental car, and running around getting the keys myself (and you would have to do this several times a year to keep up with it; and you wouldn't have the success that Las Vegas residents have if you haven't established any contacts to get you the keys, and you certainly couldn't get 10 of each so you'd have some traders). You see the same keys posted on ebay at a higher price in auctions for 1 key at a time - and they sell. Other times you see the same keys posted in bigger lots and you would pay maybe 30 to 50 cents per key. I have won several of those auctions so that I could have some more reasonably priced traders as well as have nice keys for the RRs. So I would challenge others to go after those auctions. The newer stuff is out there. And no, not all the new stuff is getting posted in Larry Kopp's monthly listings which upsets me and limits the hobby as a whole.

I think interest in collecting almost anything (casino chips, slot cards, room keys, etc.) comes and goes - sometimes it's up and there's a lot of interest, and then it slows down for a while. I have not tied the ups and down to the time of year but that could be part of it. Like Jerry said, even in the summer time you still gather things, but when September/October comes then you begin to think about spending time on the computer sharing your finds with other collectors whether that is on ebay or outside of ebay. I also do a lot of selling and trading with European collectors outside of ebay. There seems to be a lot of interest from them right now. Another part of the issue is that if you "limit" your collection (whether that be to certain casinos only, or no variations, or no international keys), then the time gap between new issues seems longer and you are not as active, and I can see that one could possibly lose some interest.

Regarding the RRs or WWRRs, I agree that in the end you have to evaluate if the cost of postage you put out justifies what you got out of the RR and that will play a part in determining if you participate in future RRs. If you "limit" your collection by not collecting the different variations, then what you get out of an RR will not be as great as those of us who do collect the variations or collect all casinos (and I don't see that as being any different than collecting the slot card variations back in the day when we did a lot of slot card RRs). I do agree that the same ol' same ol' is very prevalent in the RRs.

As a suggestion to Mike or anyone, if you don't want to participate in the RRs and possibly end up being 5th or 6th in line, then start a shotgun swap - that way everyone is the 1st and only one on the list. The flip side of that is - if you only have the same ol' same ol' to send to others, can you realistically expect to get the latest and greatest in return?

OK, that's more than my 2 cents worth, so I'll get off my soap box now.