My point was if you see one on eBay, you have no idea where or who has this list (has the list ever been published?), or who on the list sold one to someone else, and then who they sold it to, and so on.

Has the Palms ever issued a certificate stating they only made 25 of these and these are the people who have them? Do they then maintain the list anytime someone sells one to find who the new owner is? If I was on the original list and sold mine, I wouldn't tell anyone who I sold it to. Again, I'm not doubting they released 25 to the people who are on this list, but I'm doubting that every one of those people still have them (I have seen a number of them on this board for sale) and that if one of the originals that were plated after the fact was offered for sale, that anyone would know the difference.

Anyone who has the original without the gold crown could pay about $100 or so and have one done on their own, and who knows how many have done that? Heck, the CCGTCC could buy the original one and do it themselves, they are indistinguishable from the ones released by the Palms. That's the problem with releasing something in silver, and then re-releasing it later with gold plating over certain areas, it is totally open to someone making their own.

If Sam's Town re-released the Cobra with gold plating exactly where you said 30 people already did it, and they released 20 of them, you can't really say there are only 20 of them, because you know there are 30 more that are exactly the same and no one can tell the difference, unless the casino numbered them with some type of way to autheniticate them with a matching certificate, and I may be wrong, but I don't believe that happened with the Palms. Maybe it did?