I know your guy is good so I'm just making a generalization here...

One has to be very careful judging a taxidermist by "ribbons" because there are ways to win these without being very good. Take for example a local taxi in my area, his animals are terrible, he's legally blind and really misses many details when he does animals, oddly enough he's busy BUT he has many championship ribbons as well.....how? If a taxidermist enters a contest, they may have the only animal in a certain catagory and thusly, wins!

And don't judge a taxidermist by his "price" either. Saying, don't go to a cheap taxidermist, you get what you pay for is misleading as well. A guy who sucks could charge more than most and still suck and in PA, he'd be busy because the demand is out there.

Judge a taxidermist by his work alone, if you don't know what your looking for, study works of art so you do know.

I use a local taxidermist and I feel he's one of the best, he's less than some, more than others but, he's one of the best, just not greedy.