Larry; Please allow me to answer your legitimate question.... without getting into a debate. The SASE was not my idea..... it came from an interested club member who made the suggestion..... for the very reason(s) you have cited.... that he didn't know what to nominate. His suggestion was adopted for the 1999 contest .... and also adopted was the suggestion to illustrate both sides of chips that have a different design on each side. The suggestion to mail ballots out to the entire membership was rejected for the very reasons that Marv Weaver has cited in his post above.
The nominating members are not requested to send a SASE because they are submitting nominations. The SASE is merely an indication of interest on the part of those who would like to participate in the CONTEST (and that's what this is.... a contest.... which some of us seem to lose sight of) but who do not wish to place any chips and or tokens in nomination. Everyone does not have to know every chip that was issued during 1999 in order to pick five chips and five tokens to nominate..... but surely, the members that are on-line have certainly seen their share of chip images that have been posted on the bulletin board over the past year to pick ONE that they liked. There would be no need for a SASE from anyone.... IF only ONE nomination was sent in the original envelope. I've merely tried to accomodate a reasonable request. Sending ballots and color photocopes out to everyone for the purpose of conducting what was intended to be a fun CONTEST, is not a reasonable justification for the unreasonable expense of thousands of dollars it would cost to do so. As for the charge that if "king Archie decides he's against it; sending in suggestions is a waste of time".... I'll tell you what. If the BOD approves the expense of sending out ballots and color copies of the nominees to the entire membership of 2500 ...... I'll follow their directions/instructions. So how 'bout getting off "King Archie's" case for awhile and get back to enjoying our hobby? Surely there are more interesting topics to discuss on this bulletin board than COTY, COTY, COTY. Come next spring, we can all debate the chosen designs that were selected the winners by the judges committee.