We have been gone a few days and now have the time to add to this thread.
I believe it was Burl Smith that had the Green Honorable Mention Jacket. I remember him wearing it to the banquet at a National Show one year.
For those that don't know how the first shows were placed, there were only 1-1st, 1-2nd, 1-3rd, 1-4th and 1-5th in a class... regardless of size of class. An Honorable Mention was awarded any animal that was 'equal to’ the 5th place animal.
I specifically remember the National Show in 1972 in Anaheim, CA where one class had 5 previous State Grand Show Champions - yes, only 1- 1st, 1 -2nd, 1 3rd, 1 - 4th and 1 - 5th were given. In other words a State Grand Show Champion received a 5th place!!!
These shows also had hundreds of entries so had large classes – not the 1, 2 & 3, etc. in a class we see at times today.
This is how multiple ribbons eventually came to be. It started first with just multiple 1st place and later added 2nd - 5th which eliminated the need for the dreaded green ribbon - Honorable Mention. I guess that was much better than all the animals that used to be placed - 'under the table' - no award.
Our first National Show - we were proud to have received mostly green ribbons. In reality that was only 6th animal down in the class out of very large classes.
The ideas that have been suggested are very clever.
What we did over the years was to make tall cylinders out of cage wire and placed them on each side of our fire place. As the number of ribbons grew we added two to a side and then three – making them different heights. The clips on the backs of the rosettes would then just hook on the wire and you could bend a paper clip to make a hanger for the place ribbons. After awhile we just hung the rosettes.
One nice thing about this type of display was that it was easy to clean. You could just dust from the top down (today’s swifters would be great) and it was clean in no time.
Here are a couple old picture I found to show how they looked. You could easily make a tall skinny wire tube and place in a corner of your unit or somewhere in the house if you don’t have a fireplace area.
I hope this is helpful.
Barbara
http://www.shootschinchilla.com
