With New York City still feeling the effects of 9/11 and the Internet claiming a growing share of the philatelic market, dealers and collectors had no idea how the city's big fall stamp show would fare. Worry was wasted. "The opening day crowd was the best we had in years," said Joe Savarese, Executive Vice President of the American Stamp Dealers Association, one of the show's sponsors.

The Postage Stamp Mega-Event was a four day celebration of stamp collecting. Held at the Big Apple's premier exhibition hall, the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, a 1.8 million sq. ft. glass walled and roofed exhibition space, the show drew thousands of US and overseas collectors to its superb competitive exhibits, lectures, society meetings and 100+ dealers booths.

Relieved dealers welcomed the flood of determined collectors, who scurried to purchase stamps and covers before the start of the United Nations first day ceremony for the new AIDS awareness stamp, scheduled just 30 minutes after opening. If you were late, you didn't get in.

Ed, a local school teacher, celebrated a $45 find, an early 20th century Russian cover from the American-Armenian Relief Committee to a United States address. "You never see much of this stuff at any price and I never thought I'd see this cover again," he said.

"I kept seeing the cover for years in a postal history dealer's stock priced at $100. He wouldn't sell it for less than $80 and I wouldn't pay his price," he said. Finally, when he decided to buy it, he looked in the dealer's stock and couldn't find it. The dealer had sold it at a London show. "Nothing hurts like the cover that got away," Ed said.

"Here I am at the Mega show and I find the exact cover in a local dealer's stock, and at half the price I expected to pay," he said. He can't figure how it got back to New York, but he's happy to have it. He's going to use it in an upcoming exhibition of Armenian postal history to be held in Manhattan.

Ed has two apartments across the East River from Manhattan in Queens. "One I live in, the other I keep for my stamp and book collections. My collection apartment has so much stuff in it I can barely move around. I think I've got mice in there." He's setting traps.

The United Nations unveiled the AIDS awareness stamp to a packed room. The stamp shows a picture of the UN Secretariat building with windows lit in the shape of a red AIDS ribbon. Executive Director Robert Lamb of the American Philatelic Society used the occasion to extend thanks to the Tony Fouracre, retiring chief of the New York office of the UN postal administration.

"If you collect United Nations stamps, as I do, it is with sadness that we see Tony Fouracre retiring," Lamb said. "In the last 12 years under Tony's leadership UN stamps once again became a leading collecting area. Fouracre went out and got the very best designers, a lot more attention was paid to subject matter and it turned into a quality philatelic program."

Incoming UN postal chief for the New York office is Robert Gray. "Coming up in 2003 will be an engraved stamp, which I think collectors will appreciate as a return to a classic printing technique," Gray said. "And we'll be issuing a hologram stamp representing one of the most advanced printing techniques."

Geared to New York collectors, who are there to buy and apt to cut off long-winded speakers, the ceremony took less than 15 minutes. With free first day souvenir programs in hand, the audience converged on the autograph tables or sprinted to other events or dealer tables for first grabs at new merchandise.

At the US Postal Service first day ceremony for the Hawaiian Missionary souvenir sheet, over 350 collectors crowded into the room with more waiting outside. Postal employees distributed brightly colored paper leis, the traditional form of greeting by Hawaiians.

"With the recent issue of the Duke Kahanamoku stamp at Honolulu, Hawaii, I am told the first day ceremony lasted for a month with outrigger canoe races and barbecues," said Robert Lamb, again a guest speaker. "The stamp sold out in the three surrounding postal zip codes in the area where the ceremony was held."

Olympic medalist Kahanamoku was one of the greatest surfers of all time and his stamp was issued two months earlier. There had been some grumbling in the philatelic press that the Hawaiian Missionary sheet should have been issued in Hawaii and not New York.

Not everyone agreed. "This is a tribute to stamp collectors and postal history specialists, and there is no better place to issue it than right here," said Governor John F. Walsh, Member United States Postal Service Board of Governors to loud applause.

The sheet contains four stamp-on-stamp commemoratives depicting a 2 cent Missionary which covered the newspaper and printed circular rate; a 5 cent rate for letters in the Hawaiian Islands and two 13 cent stamps for the rate to the United States. The 13 cent rate is the sum of the 5 cent Hawaiian Island letter rate, 2 cents to the ship's captain to carry the letter to the United States and 6 cents to pay the US postage rate for transcontinental delivery to East Coast cities.

Called the Hawaiian Missionaries by philatelists, most of these rare stamps were used on correspondence mailed by Christian missionaries from Hawaii to friends, families and associates back in the states.

Only 28 covers bearing Missionary stamps are known to exist, and only one bears the 2-cent stamp: the famous Dawson cover shown on the 2002 souvenir sheet. The 1852 cover mailed to Miss Eliza A. Dawson is franked with a 2 and a 5 cent Missionary and a pair of 3 cent 1851 US George Washington stamps (Scott # 11) making up the 13 cent rate. One of the great covers of philately, it was saved from the ashes of a furnace at an abandoned tannery by a janitor.

A clump of papers had not fully ignited and in the center was the Dawson cover. The burn mark on the left hand side of the cover shows how close it came to a fiery end. The cover was purchased in 1995 for $2.1 million by European stamp dealer Guido Craveri. At a price of $1.48 collectors were buying the sheets as fast as clerks could sell them.

"We've sold 50,000 sheets and the show's not over yet," said Alan Foo, supervisor of special events for the USPS New York area. Foo cornered most of the sheet stock on the East Coast for the show, along with the popular Legends of Hollywood miniature sheets, the pop artist Andy Warhol sheet and the Masters of American Photography sheet. All are hot sellers. He estimated he had 75 percent of all the uncut press sheets for the Missionary souvenir sheet, and he was almost out.

Ten years ago 95 percent of US stamps were produced with gum that needed moistening to attach the stamp to a letter. Today 95 percent of US stamps use pressure sensitive adhesive (psa). Increasingly, the rest of the world's postal administrations are going psa. At an opening day lecture on tape stamps, collectors heard about the revolutionary change in technology that's transforming stamp production.

Guilford Gravure, a security printer on the East Coast chosen to make the new tape stamps, has produced 35 billion self-stick US stamps. Their new holiday Snowmen coil stamps eliminate the liner (backing paper) and can be loaded into a special tape dispenser for easier use.

The good news for collectors of used stamps is that a 30 minute soak in warm water will release the coil stamp from its envelope backing and adhesive. It then can be safely dried and placed in an album.

Also the adhesive is completely filtered out in the paper recycling process and has no negative effect on the environment, and the new tape stamp process has achieved a 50 percent savings on paper and packaging.

On the floor Mike White, a dealer from Ripon, England, chatted about stamp show versus Internet buying with fellow dealer Mike Mead of Britannia Enterprises, Orleans, Massachusetts, USA. "In one hour I can look through hundreds of covers at a show," said White. "On the Internet I can look at only a fraction of that many covers in the same time."

They both felt that seeing the item in hand eliminates any surprises. Plus buying from a dealer at a show gives a collector the protection of the American Stamp Dealers Association. "If you buy from a dealer in France over the Internet and something goes wrong and the dealer refuses to refund your money, whom do you go to?" said Mead

Gary Weiss, a doctor from Texas at the show to buy covers for his collection of mail originating in former US possessions like the Philippines and Cuba, has found a new market on the Internet. "Thank god for the Internet," Weiss said. "At dealers in the United States I would find US possessions mail to US destinations, but not foreign destinations. I wasn't finding the foreign material I needed to build an award winning exhibit."

On the eBay Internet auction site, Weiss said he bought in a few short years 150 covers that "added depth to my collection. Items I could not find in the United States." He still enjoys going to shows to meet friends, attend society meetings, and talk with and buy from dealers. And he, too, prefers to see what he's buying.

Show exhibits ranged from The Boer War, seen through Orange Free State telegraphic stamps to Switzerland's domestic postage due charges to Thomas Mazza's Street Fighting-New York City Carriers and Local Mail 1841-1863, depicting the development of private carrier mail pickup and delivery to street addresses.

Mazza's 112 page exhibit was a gem; local post covers and stamps related the story of a short-lived, fiercely competitive business and efficient alternative to the government post office. Companies had rushed in to do home and office delivery since the USPO only delivered to and picked up at central post offices.

Once postal authorities saw the money being made by private carriers, they set up their own street address delivery system. The private local post carriers were offering better service at lower cost and taking most of the business. Since the post office couldn't beat them, they bought them out and the service became known as the United States City Dispatch Post.

On the Internet eBay recently made a similar move to cut out their more efficient competition. Ebay had set up their own expensive international payment system only to see PayPal get most of the business. PayPal allowed purchasers and sellers to avoid sending checks, money orders or cash through the mails and to settle with each other by credit card; they maintained a cash balance for customers to use for purchases. Ebay bought out PayPal.

Competitive clashes aside, both dealers and collectors are finding the Internet a valuable supplement to their main activities. But there is no substitute for a show like this one with just the right mix and interplay of dealers and collectors, events and happenings.

Picture 1: First day ceremony for the Hawaiian Missionaries souvenir sheet Left to right Vinnie Molloy, Postmaster US Postal Service New York District; Governor John Walsh, US Postal Service Board of Governors; Jackson Taylor, president American Stamp Dealers Association; Robert Lamb, executive Director American Philatelic Society; Richard Sheaff, stamp designer.

Picture 2: Over 350 people attended the first day ceremony.

Picture 3: Governor John Walsh, US Postal Service Board of Governors; Vinnie Molloy, Postmaster US Postal Service New York District, autographing souvenir programs.