Welcome to singles collecting! If you're used to guides & grading scales such as what are commonly associated with baseball cards, comics, trading card games, etc, it's not that simple here. There is no Beckett, no Scrye, no TCGPlayer.com, no comics annual that encompasses pretty much everything that's available. There are some guides out there, sure, but because of gambling's somewhat clandestine nature, the sheer scope of casinos nation-wide (let alone worldwide), and various other factors, there's simply no central, gospel resource for all of chipendom. With that out of the way...
Can anyone point me the a guide as to the common grades or conditions are in.
For that, I would point you to the Casino Collectible Association's grading categories, listed here:
http://www.ccgtcc.com/education/conditions.pdf
These are the conditions that the Casino Collectibles Association (CCA), as well as the two most-referenced price guides (
The Chip Rack for Nevada chips, and
The Official U.S. Casino Chip Price Guide for many other states, sans California and Arizona), use. The notable deviation is that TCR doesn't require chips in "New" condition to never have been used in games. In other words, chips that have been lightlyused in home games or shuffled a bit might still be considered "New" condition according to the TCR.
Along with this, I would encourage you & others to remove "mint" from the chip description vocabulary. That can apply to printed media such as cards and comics, but applying such a term to a chip is extremely problematic since chips are more art than science, & more manual than automated labor.
Regardless of verbal descriptions, pictures are critical - and pictures of the edges are no less critical than those of both faces. Additionally, get actual pictures whenever you can rather than scans. Many scanners - particularly those that are smaller or part of an all-in-one printer - don't capture fluorescent colors correctly.
Still like to know what the difference between Acceptable, very good and mint is.
I haven't seen "acceptable" used anywhere re: chip condition; Very Good could vary from person to person; Mint should only be used when discussing chips from The Mint casino, not chip condition. When in doubt, refer to pictures.
We're does edge standing figure in to those grades
New and Slightly Used chips should all stand on edge. Some Average chips may stand on edge, many won't. Most Well-Used chips will not stand on edge.
Also, assume the chips are to had at a certain price mint/near mint, what precentage of the new price for used chips is common?
That's a much more difficult question to answer. First, know this & write it in mirror-image so you can see it whenever you look in a mirror:
PRICE GUIDES ARE ONLY A SINGLE POINT OF REFERENCE
In theory, those price guides follow trending data of chip sales from year to year. In reality, there are tens of thousands of chips, and only so many of them that have values that are actually worth tracking. There's also no single entity that creates guides for chips from the entire nation, let alone the world, and the OUSCPG - while still a phenomenal resource for determining which issue a chip is - hasn't been updated since 2009 & according to James Campiglia won't be updated for the foreseeable future. The other major (in terms of quantity of chips it covers) price guide used - Armen Phaender's California Guide - is updated regularly but often times those minor, intra-year updates include more chip-related content (new specimens found & added) or spelling/listing error updates rather than price-related adjustments.
So, in addition to these price guides that receive - at best - significant pricing updates about once a year, you also need to take into account recent
eBay sales, prices you see at conventions, prices you see on The Chip Board, prices you see at Spinetti's, etc, look at the conditions of those sales/offerings, and compare the sold/offer prices to that which you see in the price guides. Generally speaking, chips can be found at 40-65% of the mid-range price listed in the guides if you look hard enough & are patient. The more valuable or more rare the chip in quesiton, the closer to 100% of that upper range you're likely to have to pay. Also, don't hesitate to make an offer to someone even if their prices are listed as X on someone's forum post, particularly if you're buying multiple chips.
Another thing to remember is that TCR lists a price range for a specific grade. If the chip you're considering is above or below the listed, anticipated grade then a corresponding adjustment should also be applied to the price. Don't ask how much a standard adjustment should be. It's all dependent upon chip, location, scarcity, condition variation, etc.
So, take all of that into consideration, make a determination about what you think a fair value for a specific chip is, and then either pull the trigger on a sale or go make an offer.
Finally, if you're serious about collecting singles I'd highly recommend you join the CCA (you can read more about it
here) and peruse
The Chip Board daily. Although TCB is woefully outdated as a forum platform, that's where most of the long-time singles collectors still congregate and post their non-auction sales. Many will advertise their
eBay auctions there, too. I can find a good deal there at least once a week. And there's not been a better time to get into singles collecting than now. The market is quite down vs. ten years ago and many long time collectors are starting to liquidate their holdings.
Good luck, TAKE YOUR TIME, and happy hunting!
