This “Crown and Eagle” exhibit followed a typical development process. It had its start back in 1992 at the German Society’s convention in Milwaukee. Fantastic exhibit, all of 5 frames with nice big, black illustrations on dark gray paper. The Judges were kind, I received a Silver. I put it away for awhile.
In 1995, I brought it back out, redid it on buff paper and toned down the illustrations. I proudly took it down to the GPS convention in Florida. Net result, another Silver. Would have sold it awfully cheap at that point! A judge that I knew (not active on that jury), commented that “this is not an exhibit, this is a book!”
Mike Jolly, a fellow GPS member and APS judge took me in hand. First, he knew people that had material that would fit in my exhibit. I contacted them and found some wonderful items (It wasn’t inexpensive but what else can one do with money?). Next I would send Mike copies of my “new” exhibit pages and receive his comments back quickly. Back to the drawing board, make changes and fire off the results to Mike again for more comments.With all this effort, I had developed a goal of showing “my baby” at PACIFIC 97. To do that I needed a national Gold award (to have any chance at acceptance in a FIP show) quickly. At NOJEX, I got lucky, and just under the PACIFIC deadline date.
Off went my application and back came a rejection! However, I could place my exhibit on the standby list if I was willing to send it to the bin room “just in case” they had a cancellation. After cutting the exhibit down from its 8 frame (128 pages) to 5 frames (80 pages), off it went. Well, I replaced some poor fellow’s exhibit on United States New England Postal History and received an International Vermeil award. Not a super solid Vermeil, but not bad for a first time International Show. (It has also been shown at the IRBA ’99 in the Joint German – American Saloon).
Since then, the exhibit pages that you will see here have consistently been awarded National Gold awards and even have taken the “Reserve Grand” at one show. The pages that you will see are the entire 8 frame exhibit, including the 5 frame PACIFIC 97 entry. Changes have been made since then (in August 1999) and you can see the “old” pages to see what I have changed and second guess me on my “improvements”. The two examples of the “scale” printed down the center of the paper roll just had to be shown. On any scale of “ease of acquisition”, these are off the top! I hated to window them but they are big blocks and would take a lot of space.
