McGill wins Champion of Champions award for his Marvelous Machins exhibit

By Jay Bigalke

Steve McGill was named the Benjamin and Naomi Wishnietsky World Series Champion of Champions award winner at the 2024 Great American Stamp Show Aug. 15-18 in Hartford, Conn.

The prestigious award recognizes McGill’s 20th- and 21st-century exhibit “Britain’s Marvelous Machins” as the top national exhibit of the past year.

McGill’s exhibit was one of 21 qualifying exhibits in the Champion of Champions competition.

Each exhibit in the competition qualified by claiming a grand award at an American Philatelic Society-sponsored stamp show during the past exhibiting cycle, which ran from July 2023 through June 2024. These shows are called World Series of Philately shows.

All the exhibits entered into the competition were on display at Great American Stamp Show.

McGill’s exhibit qualified after winning the grand award at the 2023 Indypex Show, part of the World Series of Philately, held Oct. 6-8 in Noblesville, Ind.

He received his Champion of Champions award from APS president Cheryl Ganz (shown with McGill in the accompanying photo) at the Great American Stamp Show’s annual celebration banquet on Aug. 17. 

McGill’s exhibit, as explained in its introduction, expounds on the significance of Britain’s Machin series:

“In 1967, the Machin definitive stamp series was introduced as the successor to the Queen Elizabeth II Wilding stamps and continues in print today. The Machin series is named for the artist, Arnold Machin, RA, OBE, who produced the bas-reliefs used as the basis for the stamp’s image artwork. The series has become iconic not only for its long-running nature but also for its 7,000+ cataloged varieties. These varieties and their origins are the subject of this exhibit whose storyline is presented using predominately source-level stamps.”

Among the many other top exhibiting awards presented at Great American Stamp Show were the 2024 youth Champion of Champions award to Tabitha Fox for her “Blarney Castle” exhibit, the open competition grand award to Roger Brody for his exhibit “America’s Embossed Revenue Stamped Paper,” the single-frame grand award to Yavuz Corapcioglu for the exhibit “Postal Stationery of Russian Levant Post Office,” and the literature grand award to Nicholas Miles Kirke for New York City Foreign Mail 1845-1878 (Volumes 1-2).

Karl Winkelmann’s exhibit “The Dublin Censor Office 1939-1945” was chosen as the most popular exhibit at the show.

Dawn Hamman won the grand award in the American Topical Association’s National Topical Stamp Show for “All Aboard! A Grand Tour — American Style, 1915.”

The ATA was a co-host of the Great American Stamp Show, and its National Topical Stamp Show was part of the event.

The American First Day Cover Society also was a co-host, and its Americover multiframe grand award went to James Hering for his exhibit “The Two Cent Hardings.”

For additional information and the complete list of exhibit and literature award winners, visit the APS online.

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