AN EVENT
Eleven years in the planning ... culminated in eleven days of bustling activity. Just once every ten years, this international class show is held in the USA, conveniently in San Francisco. Collectors from all walks of life and from all points of this globe converged in one of the world's favorite tourist cities, to 'eat, sleep & drink' stamps! Okay, not quite ... but between the numerous postal administrations, hundreds of bourse dealers, thousands of frames of competitive and educational exhibits, hundreds of scheduled programs, meetings & seminars, and of course a staggering array of major auctions, there really wasn't much time to do much else! I'd bet, if the show were to remain open beyond the 6PM daily close, philatelic activity would have continued on. Personally, I could not attend to more than a small fraction of all the activities I had on my agenda, and in fact, show guards literally had to throw me out of the show when it closed on Sunday June 8th at 4PM, when I was trying to take in as many exhibits as possible.

THE ATTENDEES ~ THE MATERIAL
Reportedly, about 27% of the show attendees (for the first time for an international, admission was free) were beginners, and approximately 34% were attending their first stamp show of any kind (I talked to one such person, who saw a television newsclip, and attended Pac 97 specifically to view Harry Hagendorf's three mint blocks of four of the famous United States 1918 'Inverted Jenny' 24 cent airmail stamps (Scott C3a with 1997 Scott catalog value of $600,000 each, with a lot asking price exceeding $3 million). Collectors & visitors were primarily from California (about 54%), but included 34% from other states, and 12% from around the world. The best news for dealers & postal administrations was that about 93% of the attendees were there to buy, while about 19% were there to sell. While the February 1997 Hong Kong international show reportedly drew twice as many attendees, PACIFIC 97 was the superior dealers' show, as attendees had more than $10 to spend, and spend they did. Some indicated this show was the best in thirty years, even though to the dealers eleven days was too long (especially for the travelling dealer factoring in all of the travel & hotel costs). From the opening day, clear to the close, I witnessed collectors (repeat ... collectors) buying, buying and buying. Multi-thousand dollar transactions were quite the norm, and price competition (common to sports card shows) was for all intensive purposes non-existent. Quality material came out in force, and seemingly everything I looked at was $1,000 per or more, with more $10,000 to $50,000 items than I am accustomed to seeing in one place. I often witnessed $5,000 to $25,000 transactions take place in the course of a few brief minutes, granted dealers gave their serious customers standard discounts. Obviously the buyers were serious collectors & dealers, and there were many of them.

A SELLERS' MARKET
The show was a sellers' market, and most dealers probably did better than anticipated. Booth holders I spoke to transacted $50,000 to over $100,000 of activity. Some 'super booths' did over $100,000 in a given day. I guess if you're selling sets of MNH (mint no hinge) Zepp plate blocks for $25,000 each, and the like, the total adds up swiftly. Some north hall booth holders (due to the concentration of attendees in the larger south hall) did not do as well as expected, but still rationalized that if they hadn't taken as much space, and had fewer staff, they would have done quite well. In any case, the quality and quantity of material available was staggering. You could have bought (or seen) about twenty two C3a Inverted Jennys, complete sets of matched plate number Zepp plate blocks, full mint sheets of early airmails and Columbians (among others), more singles & blocks of the infamous Scott 1610c CIA Inverts than you're likely to see again, many of the large $500 Persian Rug (Scott #R133) revenues, the 'fake' British Guiana unique stamp (which was made as a stand-in for the original, for security purposes), and literally hordes of international rarities from throughout the world.

THE FUTURE
In short, Pac 97 did so well, foreign dealers were talking about returning for Westpex 1998 (which is the normally scheduled APS national show held at this time of year), as well as making plans for the re-located international class show recently relocated to Anaheim, California, World Stamp Expo 2000, again sponsored by USPS (now scheduled for July 7 - 16, 2000).

THE SPONSOR
The U.S. Postal Service, the sponsor and center stage postal administration, did tremondously well at Pac 97. In order to buy stamps from USPS, one needed to weave through a waiting area seemingly larger than twelve superbooths! Without a doubt, other show sponsors can learn a few things from Pac 97 & USPS ... which is consistently ringing up dollars for USPS, as can be summarized by USPS' recent announcement that the initial print run of 265 million Bugs Bunny stamps, targeted for the youth of America during the summer season, was being increased to 378 million stamps.

FOREIGN MATERIAL
Most visable of the foreign postal admins was Hong Kong and Canada. Daily, when the stairs & conveyors were opened to the show, crowds of hundreds RAN to the Hong Kong booth, in order to buy their share of the final Hong Kong stamps prior to the July 1, 1997 Hong Kong Handover event. Canada Post, which offered 50 press sheets daily of their Year of the Ox , got such a rush on the opening days, that they instituted a daily drawing from some 400 hopeful buyers daily. At the dealer booths, China, Macau, & Japan material were heavily in demand, so much so that many booths posted a sign to advise attendees as to whether or not the booth had any Hong Kong, China, or Macau for sale. This demand, despite the fact that all quality material from these areas wholesaling at or OVER book, and retailing from over book to a multiple of book (as a point of reference, typical quality sound material from other countries range from 25% to 50% of book, while 'seconds' quality is often from a tiny fraction to 10% of book).

THE EXHIBITS
The quality and rarity level of exhibits was staggering. Many Golds and Large Golds were awarded, in fact many of the Silvers & exhibits not receiving awards demonstrated a tremondous effort, and were worthy collections. Of particular interest was Wade Saadi's five frame exhibit of USA 1847 first issues (Scott #1 & #2) which was the basis for the three part American Philatelist article published in the March to May 1997 issues, loaded with many wonderful pieces and cancellations, which received a Large Vermeil. On the Great Britain front, Thailand's Pichai Buranasombati's Great Britain: Early Line Engraved Issues (Scott #'s 1 to 4) received the Grand Prix International & a Large Gold award, which despite observations frrom British observers that the presentation of the eight frame exhibit was somewhat less than optimal from a presentation and 'telling the story' standpoint, it placed due to the heavily overweighted emphasis on valuable and rare pieces, including many unique & largest known items, including recently purchased plate number corners of 1d black & 2d blue imprimaturs & of the regular issues (this is one of those exhibits where cost is clearly NOT an object of consideration).

and ... MORE EXHIBITS
Other wonderful exhibits included the Philatelic Foundation exhibits of fakes & forgeries (they sure looked 'real' to me!), the Monte Carlo collection of US 1847 issues, all of the United States traditional stamp & postal history exhibits, Robert Heasman's Canada Machine Postal Markings of Canada 1896-1902 (flag cancels); a number of British postal history exhibits including Erhard Zietlow's Vermeil exhibit of Great Britain Early & Experimental Machine Markings (in german), Vivien Sussex's Gold level exhibit - Valuables by Post as Carried by the British Post Office 1582-1891, Wolf Hess's Gold level exhibit of London Postal History 1661 to 1840 (stampless, which included one of the original Dockwra's and the small Essex), and Hugh Feldman's Large Gold London General Penny - Two Penny & Foreign Office Posts 1635 - 1851; Richard Knight's The Rhodesias: the History & Development of Mail Services to 1924, Guy Dillaway's The Postal History of the Cape of Good Hope 1853-1865 (an exhibit full of triangulars), and many, many other wonderfully educational exhibits. I only wish there was another week to devote solely to viewing the exhibits!

A 'FUN' EXHIBIT
A special 'fun' exhibit was the personal post card collection of Thailand's Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, comprised of primarily memories & souvenirs mailed by herself to herself in the course of her Royal travels, exhibited outside Thailand for the first time. From a distance, one wonders what this exhibit was, as it certainly was displayed in a Royal manner, complete with HRH's photo. This exhibit presented an entirely different extreme of philately, one considerably less serious than the competitive exhibits, and one that any beginning collector can appreciate and feasibly emulate.

THE AUCTIONS
The auction scene is easily summarized ... demand was strong, and prices were very strong. There were so many auctions, but Greg Manning's Official Pacific 97 Auctions sum it up ... $10 million for the sales of stamp collections, rarities of the world, scarce stamps & covers, and a smaller sale of autographs, manuscripts, sportscards & memorabilia. The first $5 million session drew some 500 floor bidders (plus many more mail bidders) for the under 1000 lots, lasting over seven hours. Okay, strong probably would be an understatement, as some are saying this is just the tip of the iceberg!

PHILATELIC READING ROOM
If one preferred some quiet time, the philatelic reading room where all the philatelic literature exhibits could be read was the place to be. There sure were a lot of new literature to be seen there on a wide variety of topics. Also on display were sixty selections from Stanley Bierman's Philatelic Library (darn ... I wanted to read some of those, too!) which came with its own PACIFIC 97 collectible, an exhibit listing pamphlet, limited to an edition of 500.

OTHER ACTIVITIES
While having previously attended a number of Westpex and other nearby APS national shows, the APS Stampshow in Oakland, this was my first international ... and what an experience it was. There were many surprises, incliding the fact that with so many dealers from all parts of the world, every dealer's stock was priced in their native currency. A very common question often heard was what is the currency of the marked prices, and what is the booth's exchange rate. That took quite some getting used to, and sometimes I just plain forgot which booth I was at. In between buying, I took time outs to attend a few meetings & seminars, took in as many exhibits as I could squeeze in, visited the National Postal Museum's wonderful exhibit as well as the Bureau of Engraving & Printing exhibit (& sales area) ... although BEP was unwilling to sell any of the essays, proofs, or complete uncut & imperforate press sheets from many eras (including Zepps!), and just plain chatted with dealers & collectors over all kinds of matters (yes, including stamps & postal history). Sometimes I even stopped to take a look at unfamiliar material, such as when I spotted a large mounted collection of U.S. pre-cancels up for auction ... in Australia (Rodney Perry June 21, 1997 lot #2088) including straight lines, tombstones, 'spider's & other fancies, and everything else that I had never seen.

MARKET REBOUND
Pac 97 was my first international, but it won't be my last. Stamps have often been described by those outside philately as a dying hobby, given the advancing age of many of the long term collectors. However, given the interest, attendance, age, and buying power of the Pac 97 visitors, and given the increasing demand for qualtity material, advancing Pacific Rim and Latin America nation and their fast developing economies, I would surmise that philately seems to be finally comig out of its depression that has traspired since 1980, and the subsequent level trading pattern of the 1990's, and from 1996 on appears to actually have already started its price accent that philatelists have long anticipated.

THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS
In addition to the activities at Pac 97, out of town visitors {dealers & collectors} spent a great amount of time away from the Pac 97 facilities. Some took in some shopping sprees in San Francisco's shopping areas, such as Union Square & Fisherman's Wharf. Some visited San Francisco's eateries. Yet others took time out to just plain 'visit & see' San Francisco. Even while on business, many made their stay an enjoyable one in one of the best known, & leading tourist cities in the world.

TERMS OF SALE:

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