Kevin Ham and Mike Mann let these prize-winning domain names expire

Domains that won $5,000 in Verisign contest used to be owned by well-known domain name investors.

Verisign found some great domains for the final five $5,000 winners in its Internet Official contest. All five were previously registered.

Interestingly, a couple well-known domainers used to own two of the domain names: Kevin Ham and Mike Mann. Based on DomainTools’ whois history, it seems they let the domain names expire. Here is the history behind the five winning domains:

Delectablegarden.com – registered in 2009 and expired the following year. Remained unregistered until the winner registered it in February of this year.

GeorgiaWeddingCakes.com – this is kind of odd. It was registered to a Houston company called “House of Caskets and Memorialization, LLC”. Not exactly something I’d connect to wedding cakes in Georgia. It looks like Kevin Ham’s company registered this domain in 2007 and then let it expire in 2012.

Cancersniff.com – I assume this has to do with the idea that dogs could “sniff” cancer to detect it. The domain was registered in 2006 and then expired last year before the winner registered it in April.

WarmEscapes.com – Poor Mike Mann. It looks like he let this $5,000-winning domain name expire last year. Before Mike owned it, it was registered to one Barry Biffle with a USAirways.com email. That’s the name of the current president of Frontier Airlines.

BridesWithABudget.com – this domain was registered in 2008 and later expired. It was then picked up by another registrant who let it expire last year.