Despite the exhibitions, history, number of artists and global sweep of the artistamp movement, the medium had long been ignored by major institutions and derided by the arts establishment: before his death in 1989, Bidner attempted to donate his definitive collection to several major Canadian institutions but was turned down by every one. The collection eventually went to Artpool, an art research centre in Budapest, Hungary who organized World Art Post, the first big scale artistamp exhibition in Central Europe in 1982, and in 1987 the first arstistamp exhibition to be held in a renowned museum. Upon his death, Bidner's friend Rosemary Gahlinger-Beaune, undertook Bidner's vision and began to catalogue, using philatelic standards, artistamps from over 200 artists from 29 countries, documenting more than 10,000 artistamp images. In 1999, Gahlinger-Beaune and Bianchini released a CD entitled "The World of Artistamps", the most comprehensive database of artistamps of the time.