ASDA 100th Anniversary Stamp Exhibition

ASDA 100th Anniversary Stamp Exhibition

At the American Dealers Stamp Association 100th Anniversary Stamp Exhibition held October 23-26, 2014 in New York City, Bob Pildes’ exhibit “Artists Drawings, Essays, Proofs and Associated Material won the Grand Award for “Foreign Material” section.  This is the first time, to my knowledge, that an Israeli Exhibit was awarded a grand at a major U.S. exhibition.

It also won a Large Gold, the only one awarded to foreign material.  Don Richardson, of New Zealand, the Chief Judge was in the group assigned to this exhibit and awarded it 95 points per FIP International criteria.

There were several interesting aspects to this show.  First, frame fees were $75 per frame, an extremely high fee.  However, this was compensated for  by having the banquet dinner and bar, complimentary for exhibitors.  Second, it was unusual in that it there were 2 Grand Awards, one for US and one for Foreign material.  The award medals were actual coins, not paper documents. This was last done in the 1980’s according to Judge Richard Drews.  They were beautifully mounted and framed for display.  The two Grand Awards were 1914 $20 gold pieces. The four Best of Show Awards were 1914 $10  gold pieces; the large gold medals were 1914 $5 gold pieces.  Gold medals were $2 1/2 gold pieces; Large Vermeil were Proof 2014 US $1  coins,  Vermeil medals were 2014 $1.00 coins, Large silver medal is a Proof $1/2 coin.  The Silver medals were Proof 2014 quarters  and Silver Bronze  was a Proof 2014 nickel.  The Court of Honor received a $2/12 dollar gold piece.

Stanley Piller, Chairman of the Show Committee, recently fractured foot notwithstanding, and Colin Fraser, spent days laboring assembling these medals.  By the way, Colin Fraser spent the day continuously busy during the exhibition and making sure everything went according to plan. Colin Fraser’s thank you had a $ 21/2 gold piece.

In addition, every exhibitor was assigned  (by Colin Fraser) a specific time at his exhibit for a one on one discussion of his exhibit by a judge who had participated in its evaluation.  This was much more valuable than the usual arrangement an exhibitor might make with an individual judge after the normal judging criteria meeting.  This allowed the judge to have a specific time to give the exhibitor his undivided attention in a leisurely fashion.

I personally especially enjoyed the exhibition because Michael Bass and I had a chance to spend a lot of time with each other and discuss our exhibits.  Incidentally, Michael received a Large Vermeil medal for his exhibit.   It is of Gold medal quality but unfortunately was downgraded on a technicality that caused a small loss in his total point count. The name of his exhibit was FOREIGN POSTAL OPERATIONS IN THE HOLY LAND 1552-1914

In closing, both of us keep requesting that other members of our Society keep exhibiting so judges become more familiar with our area of collecting.  At least our society had 2 quality exhibits here that were significantly exposed to collectors.