The Outrageous judging of Maximaphily Exhibits for INDIPEX 2011

The Outrageous judging of Maximaphily Exhibits for INDIPEX 2011

INDIPEX 2011 recently took place on 12-18 Feb 2011. It was shocking to see the bulletin that includes the results of the maximaphily exhibits as below for which our country commissioner, Mr. Chang Chih-Ming, brought back.

Frames No. / Name of Exhibitors / Country / Title of Exhibits / Total Score / Medal
80001-8 (8) / George Constantourakis / Canada / History of Maximaphily 1872–1940 / 80 / V
80009-13 (5) / Atabey Ege Tunaci / Turkey / Classic Card Maximums of Turkey Ottoman and Early Republic Period / 70 / S
800014-18 (5) / Pulak Gupta / India / Discover India / 65 / SB
80019-23 (5) / Pierre Vandenhaute / Belgium / The Birds in the world / 65 / SB
80024-28 (5) / Sasmita Raut / India / The World of Birds / 60 / B
80029-33 (5) / Miklos Laszlo / Hungary / Der Anfang Von Der Arpadenze / 75 / LS
80034-38 (5) / Xianli Meng / China / Styles of Tops of The Buildings / 76 / LS
80039-43 (5) / Chang-Cheng Wang / Chinese Taipei / The Artistic Styles of Buildings Before 1949 / 70 / S
80044-48 (5) / Chih-Ping Chu / Chinese Taipei / Memorial / 75 / LS
80049-53 (5) / Pradip Mohanty / India / Bills / 60 / B

10 exhibits participated in this event in total, of which the best score was given to George Constantourakis from Canada with his exhibit named History of Maximaphily 1872-1940. He was awarded a Vermeil with a score of 80 (the lowest score possible score given for a Vermeil as the range of vermeil was 80-84).

Allow me to introduce Mr George Constatourakis. He was the chief editor of the North American Maximaphily and the current chairman of FIP Maximaphily Commission. He owns two maximaphily exhibits that has won numerous prizes and the international level. In addition, this current exhibit also took part in various exhibitions previously and obtained various prestigious awards as listed below:

CHINA 2009 90 points Gold award 8 frames
EFIRO 2008 89 points Large Vermeil award 8 frames
ISRAEL 2008 86 points Large Vermeil award 8 frames
WASHINGTON 2006 88 points Large Vermeil award 8 frames
ESPANA 2004 Large Vermeil with Felicitations award 5 frames

Below is the history of awards for this exhibit in Canada:
ADELAIDE 2006 89 points Gold award (5 Nation Cup-Best Canadian Exhibit)
ROYAL 2003 Gold award
ORAPEX 2002 Vermeil plus Special Creativity Award
ROYAL 2001 Vermeil with Felicitations award

Based on the awards received, one must be wondering why did he bother to take part in INDIPEX 2011 after winning the gold award in CHINA 2009?
Well, there is a saying in Chinese, to strive for excellence even if one has already achieved good, which is what Mr. George Constantourakis is doing. Even though he already has achieved a gold in CHINA 2009, he still made an effort to revamp the whole exhibit and included other valuable maximum cards. Therefore I feel that the reduction in the score from 90 to 80 seems too preposterous.

What kind of scoring would one have imagined the other 9 exhibits to get if Mr. George's exhibit got a mere vermeil?!

There is a specific set of regulations for judging the exhibits: Special Regulations for the Evaluation of Maximaphily exhibits at F.I.P Exhibition (SREV)
The components are as follows:
Treatment 20 points and Extent of the exhibit 10 points
Knowledge 20 points and Research 15 points
Condition 10 points and Rarity 20 points
Presentation 5 points
Total 100 points

Thus, the jury should be able to give decent score in the various categories and hence total up the score into a final score for the respective awards:
60-64 points for Bronze (B)
65-69 points for Silver Bronze (SB)
70-74 points for Silver (S)
75-79 points for Large Silver (LS)
80-84 points for Vermeil (V)
85-89 points for Large Vermeil (LV)
90-94 points for Gold (G)
95-100 points for Large Gold (LG)

Hence, whether the jury is judging the exhibit objectively or subjectively, there should be a spectrum of scores. The scores However, the respective scores for the 10 exhibits are as follows: 80, 76, 75, 75, 70, 70, 65, 65, 60, 60. Thus it seems like other the exhibit with the score of 76, the rest of the other scores are all based upon the baseline lowest possible scoring for the respective categories. Does it mean that the jury give the final score based just on impression ie "I think this exhibit deserve a silver, so he gets exactly 70 points?"

If that's the case, there will be no need for professional jury, we could just get any random person to give the marks based on impression then. To make matters worse, the best exhibit only got a mere 80 points, would that mean that the judging is blatantly unfair? This would then be a humiliation to the stamp collecting community as well as to the previous groups of jury that gave the judging professionally.

If the jury feels that they are judging fairly, they should be declaring all the exact breakdown of the scores for all the exhibits this time.

The qualifications of the jury according to FIP Standards has to be someone who has attained minimum of a vermeil in world maximaphily exhibition and nominated as a jury. Only then would this person be able to apply as a jury, and he would then be put on probation for a period of time. Once he passed his probation period then would he be able to become a jury officially. However, if he fail to continue taking part in exhibitions for every 5 years, his qualification as a jury would be removed.

In view of this ridiculous judging of the exhibits this time, we would like to request the two jury to declare their previous history of vermeil award in maximaphily exhibition, otherwise their qualifications would be void.

Due to the fact that the judging for INDIPEX 2011 Maximaphily is indeed unfair and unjust, we would like to beseech our chairman of FIP, Mr Tay Peng Hian, to take some action upon this matter.