It would be up to the person bringing the item to have documentation already. Show your documents , get a sticker.
I understand big vendors are inflated but it’s a standard. We aren’t talking about price shopping. It’s a base line.
Big stores can be unreasonably inflated. Problems arise when you get things like this:
WWC Cactus Cooler Mille Acropora World Wide Corals Acropora Live Coral Frag
worldwidecorals.com
By price, this would be an ultra. But if someone brought a holy grail torch and went home with this, I don't know if they'd want to bring a torch to the next swap.
On the topic of the process, I'm well aware that large revisions would introduce some complexity to an already-arduous check-in, for volunteers who are already doing a lot, and so the feasibility of this is probably slim. I completely understand how no process or list can be infallible, and the closer you try to get, infinitely more work is needed to make it happen. I still wanted to put in my two cents for consideration by people more experienced with events than I am.
Instead of the two tiers, bonus and ultra, we could assign "ticket-eligible" corals a point value and decide that, say, every 5 points is a ticket. This, IMO, would allow for better ranking of corals by allowing for more corals that float just outside the "bonus" or "ultra" categories to be incentivized to be brought and be rewarded.
For example, a regular hammer, which based on the current system is not bonus, might suddenly feel worth bringing if it were worth a point, while on the extreme opposite end, an OG bounce might feel worth bringing if it were worth significantly more than just a sunkist.
For what it's worth, my former bonus are probably going to end up in dbtc or as trades. I'm not too upset and for some of them, I agree with Josh's decision. I just wanted to share my thoughts about this.