Important Message to all IFOB Members and Followers about Asim Maner

\You may have noticed that there has been hardly any activity on the IFOB-website or you are maybe wondering why you got no reaction from Asim. There is a simple but very sad reason for all this: on the third of June, Asim's daughter Jenny informed us that Asim had passed away quite unexpectedly and suddenly during their holiday at Sardinia.

Asim and Evi, his wife, were at the beginning of a new period of their life after the retiring of Evi from her teaching job. The trip to Sardinia should have been only the beginning! They did enjoy their stay at Sardinia--the sea all around, brilliant weather, nice villages and unspoiled nature. They might have crossed even the footsteps of Napoleon at this isle. Too sad and cruel that the sudden death of Asim ended all expectations.

Our sincere condolences have gone to Evi and her two daughters, wishing them much strength and courage for the hard times to come. They have lost a remarkable husband and father who was also very important for the community of bookmark collectors all over the world, full of energy and creativity, with a million ideas for the future. The kind thoughts of many IFOB-members will be with Asim.

Laine Farley is looking for possibilities to continue the IFOB-website, at least some parts of it, and I will try to assist her. Please follow the news on the website.

Sorry for the bad news,
Regards, Georg Hartong

IFOB community,
I would like to add to Georg’s message my own condolences to Asim’s family.  This web site and the idea of an online forum for international bookmark collectors was his vision, and he fulfilled it not only with enthusiasm but also with much generosity to me as a co-editor and to the entire community.  Asim was also very creative in the work his company did to create beautiful bookmarks. Only recently, he completed a series of six bookmarks based on the works of Claude Monet in conjunction with an exhibition at the Foundation Beyeler.  I wanted to mention them in the last newsletter, but Asim did not want to mix his business with the web site. He always demonstrated integrity in all matters concerning IFOB.  He was full of plans and ideas, even as he was anticipating the changes resulting from his wife’s retirement. All of that makes it even more difficult to comprehend his sudden death.
 
Although we have lost our leader, a fellow collector, and a friend, Georg and I hope to honor Asim’s dream to encourage bookmark collectors worldwide to communicate, share, exchange and learn about bookmarks.  We will be posting soon about changes and plans that are in the works.  It may take us a little while to sort out the various components and activities of the web site, so we ask for your patience.

As some of you know, Asim had begun to sell some of his collection.  He daughter, Jenny, would like to sell the entire collection, and we will post more information about that shortly. 

Laine Farley
​Co-editor