Before I get started, I want to congratulate all the winners of this years awards. That said I also want to thank all those who have congratulated me for the Most Informative Custom Set. Your kind comments mean more to me than you know. I also wish to thank the judges for recognizing my set among the 72,000 other sets in the Collectors Society Registry.

The last time I won a major NGC award other than a journal award was a best-presented set award four years ago. At that time, I wrote a post entitled, I Am Honored. Now four years later, I am still honored but with a slightly different twist.

This time is much different for me in that I feel honored to know many of the other award winners. For instance I know all three (RichH, VUMC409, and jgenn) of this years journal award winners. Each of them, on numerous occasions, has commented on my posts as I have on theirs. Congratulations guys, NGC could not have selected three more worthy journalists! Furthermore, I have the utmost respect for each of these people and their knowledge of numismatics. When they talk, I listen.

Next, I know four of the five winners of the Best Presented awards, two of which I know closely and the other two from their occasional posts on the Collectors Society boards.

JAA/USA Philippines Collection and coin928 have been very supportive of my collecting interests. I have appreciated their encouraging friendship and look forward to many more years of continued friendship with them. Additionally, when it comes to coins of the Philippines you will not find two people that are more knowledgeable then they are. Together, they are responsible for four major set awards and a journal award over the last two years. That is a quite an accomplishment and I congratulate them on their awards.

I only know of SPHansen and Eagles-R-It from their occasional journal and message board posts. Their sets are impressive and worthy of the awards they have received, congratulations!

Finally, they say a person is known by the company he or she keeps. Well Id say that I keep pretty good company here at Collectors Society and this is why I am honored and privileged.

Gary

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