Most of the questions answer themselves. To be brief, take the movie Academy Awards as an example. Winning "Best Picture" or "Best Actor" wouldn't mean much (have any prestige) if a small committee picked the winner. All the 1000's of members of the Academy vote for Best Picture whether they had a hand in the nominations or not. That gives the prestige. ..... ....... Take Best Documentary or Best Foreign Film. Many Academy members have not seen any or many documentaries during a year, for example, so they are not in a position to nominate such a film. But once the nominating committee narrows down the choice to 5 or less, the members wil see or learn about those films, if they have not already, and are in a position to vote on them.

It is a question of aesthetics and taste. More so with chips. A chip collector may not know enough about current chips to know what was issued when, or have seen enough current chips to hazard a nomination, or even care to bother to nominate a chip, but is an ideal candidate to use his love and appreciation of chips to decide what appeals to him best. All he has to do is look at the pictures of the chips in the chip newsletter or in the ballot. And it is obvious that this large body adds more prestige to the final choice than a small nominating group would.

Robert