The Charles H. Sweeting Memorial Award is a privately donated perpetual award to encourage postal history exhibiting competition between New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and the six New England States.  The rules governing the competition were established in June 2004 by the societies participating at ROPEX 2004 – New York, New Jersey, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont and Ohio.

CHARLES H. SWEETING

1934 – 2003

One of the founders of the Empire State Postal History Society in 1967, Charlie Sweeting was its first President and remained an officer of the Society until 1992, 25 years after its founding. He made many contributions to the Society during his 25 years as an officer, and could always be counted on for help.

In addition to his service with ESPHS, Charlie was a dedicated postal history collector, exhibitor and author. As a collector, he specialized in the postal history of Cayuga and Oswego Counties, NY. To Charlie, collecting postal history was like collecting local history, and this led him first, to author 200 Years of Cayuga County, NY Postal History, published by ESPHS in 1998, and second, to co-author with his daughter, Heather, Oswego County, NY Postal History, published by ESPHS in 2002. Each of these volumes organizes in logical, attractive and readable format an immense amount of information relating to the history of postal communications in their respective counties, and is a valuable resource not only for the postal history collector, but also for those persons interested in their local history.

DONOR STIPULATIONS FOR CHARLES H. SWEETING MEMORIAL AWARD

The purpose of this award is to encourage postal history exhibiting by members of state philatelic or postal history societies in the northeastern United States by means of an annual or biannual competition between societies representing their respective states.

Northeastern United States is defined as Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio (hereinafter referred as “the ten states”).  Each of the ten states must be invited to any competition for this award; actual participation by each of the ten is not required, so long as each is duly invited.  States adjoining the ten can be invited to the competition along with the ten.

The competition must be held at a national level (WSP) show in New England, NY, NJ, PA or OH.  A state society celebrating an anniversary divisible by five shall have first choice to host the competition; otherwise the first choice shall go to the winning society in each annual or biannual competition, and if this society chooses not to host the following year, then the second place society in the competition shall have first choice, and so on.  There are currently seven WSP shows in the area of the ten states, and it is hoped the competition will rotate among all seven shows on a regular basis.

The scoring system for determining the winner of this award at each competition shall be the system agreed upon by the participants at ROPEX 2004, unless and until a majority of those six participants (ME, VT, MA, NY, NJ & OH) agree upon any proposed change.

This award shall remain in the custody of the winning society until a new winner is selected in a competition among at least four of the ten.

                                                                                          June 2004

                                                                                          Revised April 2005

RULES OF COMPETITION

1.   Only exhibits by Society members will be eligible to participate in the competition.  

2.   Exhibitors belonging to more than one participating State Postal History Society may exhibit postal history from more than one state and have the exhibit and exhibitor’s participation counted for each Postal History Society to which the exhibitor belongs.

3.   Exhibits of U.S. postal history not specific to a single state are eligible to compete as long as the exhibitor belongs to one of the Societies invited to compete. In order to be eligible for the best in multistate postal history exhibiting awards (multi-frame and single frame), at least 80% of the exhibit must relate solely to the state of the exhibitor’s participating postal history society.

4.   State-specific illustrated mail exhibits, as well as display class postal history exhibits, by participating society members are eligible for the competition. 

5.   Previous multistate postal history single and multi-frame competition winning exhibits will not be eligible for the same award for five years, but can still compete in the interim and contribute to the point scoring for their Societies.

6.   Scoring will be done by a panel consisting of one representative from each participating society.

7.   “Postal history” will be given a broad definition, but will not include exhibits generally classified as traditional, thematic, postal stationery, revenue, Cinderella, aerophilatelic or astrophilatelic.  Issues as to an exhibit being “postal history” for purposes of the competition will be resolved by the scoring panel.

SCORING SYSTEM

Points for Medal Levels

            Gold                            10

            Vermeil                          8

            Silver                             6

            Silver-bronze                  4

            Bronze                           2

One bonus point will be added to the medal level points if at least 80% of the exhibit relates solely to the state of the exhibitor’s participating postal history society.

Bonus Points

            Grand                                  4

            Reserve Grand                      3

            Grand Single Frame              4

Bonus Points for Best in Competition *

            Multi-frame                          3

            Single Frame                        3

* Unless the exhibit is already receiving Grand, Reserve Grand or Grand Single Frame

Points for Participation

            Most Exhibitors                                              10

            Most Multi-frame Exhibits                                5

            Most Single Frame Exhibits                               5

            Most Postal History Exhibits of a Single State   10