Maybe I'm weird like this, but I find it stupefying that Wedge is getting called out by a non-winning casemaker for "campaigning" inside of a case of the year contest established by, and administered by,...the very same casemaker.
The fact that the very same casemaker participates in the contest is purely reasonable, right?
Would that casemaker have complained if the winning casemaker were someone other than his long-established adversary?
What if that casemaker had won & his customer was the one "guilty" of "campaigning"?
I would have been disappointed if my customer had been actively campaigning for votes when no one else was. I would have felt the same sort of distaste as I do now.
And for the record the campaigning was brought to my attention by others. I can guess that if anyone else had been running the poll then it would have been brought to their attention as well.
I honestly didn't care which case or case maker won. TO me they are ALL winners and I mean that sincerely. I love this craft. I love the creativity. I love everyone's varied ways of making cases.
I don't love everyone who does it, I don't love ALL of their choices in construction or decoration but I honestly love the effort they put in.
I am sorry but I just found it to be a bit a bit of hubris to crow about winning in the for sale thread when winning came through campaigning in a contest where it wasn't really supposed to be a popularity contest. To be clear I don't think that Wedge cheated. I guess I just didn't think far enough in advance to think that he or Joe Van Buren or anyone would go so far as to use influence to gather votes. I am not the brightest bulb a lot of the time and I should have done it much differently.
As for me participating in the contest, I didn't really. I posted one case as my entry and that case was posted knowing it had no shot. I posted that case as a nod to Jamie who started the Cue of the Year poll because he saw my good side and allowed me to build him a case despite previous disagreements.
Had I wanted to really compete then I would have made it so that several more of our cases were put in that had a lot more work. I also would have made sure that those cases were shown off with lots of very flattering images.
I will tell you when such honors will mean something to me. When and if we case makers ever get a case show case of our own at the cue shows and if there is a Case Maker's Choice award is when winning will matter. Having an example of our work chosen as case of the year by my peers would be huge for me. All else is nice but ultimately fluff because that's a pure beauty contest. My peers know what goes into making a case and they look the deepest at the work. So if we ever made something that they felt was worthy of such an honor then it would in fact be an honor.
