For the benefit of those who were not in attendance ... or who did not get a chance to review the terrific exhibits on display .... I examined Henry's "Exhibit" .... and in my humble opinion the Board acted correctly in having it dismantled... but not because of the subject matter or theme.

The "display" consisted entirely of black & white photo copies. The fact that the photocopies were of slabbed chips is not the issue to my way of thinking.

The display in my opinion was SUB-STANDARD. Other club members brought their actual chips and tokens and casino memorabilia to be set up in their displays. This original material on display by other exhibitors may have been worth hundreds (or thousands) of dollars cumulatively ... and it took the individual exhibitors a lot of time and effort in preparation in layout and assembly before it was brought to the convention in Las Vegas and additional considerable work upon arriving at the convention in setting it up in the display cases.

Henry's display amounted to removing maybe a dozen or so b/w photocopies from a manila folder and placing these pages in a display case that probably took all of five minutes to set up. That is unacceptable ... and the exhibit should not have even been allowed to be set up initially in my opinion. This was the Exhibit Chairman's first time serving in that capacity and I don't fault him.

Someone asked me on the convention floor; "well what if Henry's display was of guns and he placed photo copies of guns in his exhibit?" My response is that at a gun show .... or a horse show ..... or at any other show... an exhibitor would be expected to bring the actual gun or the actual horse to show ..... not a photo of a gun or a photo of a horse to be judged. Can you imagine someone bringing b/w photos of his AKC Champion French Poodle to the Westminster Kennel Club dog show .... and expecting the judges to accept those photos as an entry? I don't think so!

Being that slabbed chips are prohibited in the exhibition area ... Henry was trying to skirt the issue by displaying black & white photo copies of slabbed chips .... but the bottom line is that his display techniques were sorrowfully SUB-STANDARD .... which is why I would hope was the reason that the exhibit was ordered to be removed.

If Henry had showed these same b/w photos of these chips NOT in slabs.... I would hope that his display would still be ordered not worthy of exhibit as well.

Just one man's opinion .... and of a former Exhibit Chairman.