Boston Grand Prix Exhibit Judging Debacle

I agree too.

A book is also about presentation too. In digital form, the exhibit becomes more like a book,

The nomination and judging functions clearly ought to be separated. Unification may have made sense at one time, perhaps when judges were scarce and the stakes were lower, but I expect that this experience will create pressure to change that.

Alas, the people in power positions often pretend not to notice, and ignore what others might think of as pressure.

I had heard whispers during the week of the show about the dinner boycott, but this is the first I've heard in detail about what actually happened.

Pretty dumb of those involved to do this; not only is everyone else pissed off (and rightfully so), but now the victor can't fully enjoy his win as it's tainted. Everybody loses.

Someone (or more than one) needs to take responsibility and resign, if only to try and instill confidence in judging moving forward.

Are they actually "bound by confidentiality" by signing an NDA?

This is the natural outcome of participants chasing prestige at the expense of principles. Being fearful of being ostracized and perhaps cold shouldered out of the "club". That is pathetic.

I cannot imagine this behavior in any competition from Little League ball to Amelia Island for cars.

Undoubtably the hope of those involved in a sham award is that memories are short and they are probably right.

"MEMORIES ARE SHORT " No , they are not . It is the people who spend big money and do all the research and spend a life time to make a world class exhibit who will never forget . Then there are all the thousands of volunteers who worked to make the show work ,who put in the effort only to see this scandal take all of the attention away .

We have seen over the past years the total destruction of the lick-em and stick-em collector with the flood of new issues to the bottom of the philatelic hobby . Now we are seeing the cracks and seperation in the top shelve of the hobby and seeing a major firm that sells top grade material understand the effort to buy and build a award winning show piece fall apart with these cracks .

While I agree that there is a big problem here, complaints about new issues goes back to the 19th century. There were plenty of philatelic magazines around then, and plenty of complaints. So I would be very careful about using that as proof of cracks in the hobby.

Read that again .....it wasn't cracks ,the many years of new issues has collapsed the beginner starting in the hobby ,sure it showed cracks going back into the 1800's . But the hobby in the 1950's was full steam ahead . price were climbing . The cracks got bigger in the 1980's and by the time ebay started it started the collapse for new issues for collectors .
This stupid problem at Boston 2026 will start cracks in the top of the hobby . These are the people who spend decent money at the auction firms but are thinking why build and research a top class exhibit and spend time and effort if the prize of a award is done in a backroom .

I think you underestimate the interest that some New issues have for new collectors. You don't like them, so you are assuming that no one else does. They seemed to be doing well in Boston. Not all discount postage was purchased to use on mail.

The complaint at Pacific '97 was the US Post Office was doing so much business selling current stamps that money and time was not being spent with the dealers not selling new issues.

Yes. Everytime we walked by the USPS area it was a good crowd of people. With lines for First Day issues and other material. I would say that there is still considerable interest.

Interestingly enough, in the (post-mortem) panel discussion on Boston 2026 held by the CCNY, Yamil Kouri stated that as a lesson learned he considered FIP patronage not worth the trouble and effort, without getting into specifics. Perhaps this is what he had in mind.