The pic above is a special piece that I had always admired in Steve's collection, we even talked about a future trade someday. This gorgeous, top shelf Brookfield CD 126.3 was acquired in the Steve Blair Memorial Auction held on Friday evening of the show. What great memories this piece of glass holds for me personally.

I recently posted the following information and links to ICON, but wanted to make them permanently available, so here's the info again:

I put some video on YouTube for those that couldn't attend and for those that did, you can revisit this special event. It was taken in HD, but the transfer to YouTube seems lower in quality and a bit jerky at times, so I apologize in advance.

The first video is made up of a few excerpts from the Friday evening auction that contained a good portion of Steve's collection. There is a small section I had to edit out where "Dug" made a potty mouth remark about something as I walked up behind him...but I'm sure that surprises no one. I sure wish I would have had the camera running at one point when the crowd roared with booing, hissing and disdain, but I did catch the aftermath. Please take note of the clip where the camera zooms in on a broken porcelain pony on the floor as Jack Snyder gathers insulators as a runner. Maybe we can get Jack to explain what happened here?...it was clearly insulator abuse! And finally, I apologize for the final few seconds where the camera moves quickly downward and tries to focus on my shoes as I was reacting to the auctioneer's request for my bidder number.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mabz6PfLOEs

The second video is a fairly rapid walk of the show floor, plus a special tribute and toast in memory of Steve at the end. The show was so huge that if I walked along and slowly focused on each and every table and engaged in conversation with each dealer, it would be a 3 hour clip, so this video is designed to give the viewer a feel for the show as if you just walked in and quickly scanned the aisles first. There's no narration...you'll mostly just hear the natural buzz of activity in the background. I had to shoot this during a slower period on Saturday. Any attempt on Friday would have produced only the backsides of collectors standing at most tables, since the entire afternoon was a constant buzz of activity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5uuk-X38DM

Finally, the third video is one straight run of the exhibits down the full left wall. Thanks to all exhibitors, you did a great job!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLaWXnZ4vyY

Hope you enjoy them.