Click here to read the previous post in the series- Corvette Awards and Organizations.

HELP! I lost my Corvette awards!

If you lose an NCRS award

NCRS charges $300 to research if a particular Corvette has received an award. Unfortunately, this is your only recourse. Records are uneven before the mid-1980’s (when I created the NCRS awards database) and grow worse earlier. NCRS started in June 1974; therefore there’s a big gap. The service will return the date; event name; type of event (Chapter, Regional or National); basic scoring information; and other miscellaneous data. This $300 is payable whether or not an award exists, so I would not advise a “fishing expedition.” You will want to be fairly confident that the Corvette earned an award. Note that the $300 fee does not include any replacement award. NCRS will tell you that the original NCRS award plaques, award ribbons, and award certificates were presented to the Corvette owner at the event (or shipped soon after) and No NCRS awards are ever recreated or replaced.

The replacement process at NCRS

The NCRS “Car Award Confirmation Service” is only available by using an online order form at their website. Click to visit their website. The text below is copied verbatim from their site. As I explained earlier, “the charges are still valid” translates to you paying $300 for them to type a VIN number into a database whether or not they can locate any useful information.

	Car Award Confirmation Service
	NCRS is pleased to include in the list of available services within the hobby the addition of an Award Confirmation Document. This document will provide a complete listing from our NCRS database of the available award statistics for a specific Corvette. NCRS records date back to the mid/late eighties in many cases. The Award Confirmation Document could provide an important link or be the missing piece to a vehicle’s history. This service includes a copy of the Shipping Data Report for your car if it is available for your model. The cost for this service will be $300 USD. Pay by Credit Card or PayPal. Please note: The Award Confirmation Document will provide any information that NCRS has on event judging awards. In the event that there is no event judging award information, the charges are still valid.

If you lose a Bloomington Gold Award

Bloomington Gold’s system is far more user-friendly and affordable. Bloomington Gold maintains a Certification database of all of their past awards. The data records each Corvette by VIN (Vehicle Identification Number); owner; year of the award and color. There is a very reasonable $25 fee charged to research the database. Bloomington archives the awards and can provide an actual copy of the certificate for $75. NCRS only provides a print out of the text. Bloomington also saves the incredibly valuable Judging Sheets for every car. These sheets indicate in great detail exactly what the judges liked (and didn’t like) about the car. I’d argue that these are often more worthwhile than the award. If you want both the Award Copy and the Judging Sheets, they waive the $25 research fee.

The replacement process at Bloomington

You communicate with a real person at Bloomington Gold. Call in your database requests to the main Bloomington Gold phone number 309.888.2588 or email them to info@bloomingtongold.com. They accept all major credit cards in payment. A paid award search can sometimes be an expensive route to provenance. As previously discussed, awards (even valuable ones) can become separated from the car.

Why no duplicate Corvette awards?

There is one primary reason that organizations almost never duplicate Corvette awards in their original form. There are corrupt people out there. People who would attempt to link the award to a different, undeserving Corvette and then sell that Corvette to an unsuspecting person for a considerably inflated price. That occurs, and it occurs more often than you would think. It is often possible to purchase real/official NCRS Flight Award ribbons on eBay! NCRS didn’t lose the ribbon or sell it to make a buck. Whoever won the ribbon last year (or decades ago) simply sold it or gave it away. Awards do become separated from cars. Both organizations encourage anyone without a Corvette award listing their name listed as the owner to simply have the car judged again.

Why did my Corvette earn the award?

You worked hard to earn a nationally-recognized award from organizations like Bloomington Gold, the National Council of Corvette Clubs (NCCC), Chevy VetteFest, or the National Corvette Restorers Society (NCRS). Ensure that the car’s next owner understands not only that the Corvette earned that particular award, but what it involves. What is the organization that presented the award? Why are their awards valuable in the Corvette market? How was your Corvette evaluated to win the award? New people are learning about the Corvette Hobby every day. Don’t assume anything. Be proud of your accomplishments and gather any info useful to explain what you went through to earn that special Corvette award. The future owner of your car will be most interested!

The next blog article will be of interest if your Corvette has appeared in a publication, either in print or online.

As always- post any questions, and I’ll do my best to point you in the right direction!