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(exhibition information shared on facebook)

after coming to the united states, i have been to several exhibitions, some large and some small, with dozens of booths, and some flea markets in air shows, but this exhibition is the largest, with rich exhibits and a wide variety of items, and many internationally renowned auction companies and collectors participated in the exhibition. this time i can be considered to have experienced a big scene.

(york convention and exhibition center, the venue of max show)

the military exhibition was held at the yorktown expo center in pennsylvania, usa, which can accommodate 900 booths (usually one booth has 2-3 booths or even more). tickets are required to enter the venue. the ticket office is almost always staffed by friendly silver-haired grandmas. i bought a ticket for the day on site. the ticket price is $12 excluding tax. the purchased ticket is a sticker that you can stick on your clothes and use to go back and forth to the venue many times. if the sticker is lost, you can show the ticket purchase receipt to the security guard at the door and you can enter the venue. it is very user-friendly.

(stickers and vouchers)

on the right side of the ticket area, there are various brochures and cards related to military activities in pennsylvania (abbreviation for pennsylvania). on the left side of the ticket area, there are stalls selling snacks and drinks, where you can rest for free (by the way, almost all chairs placed outside by businesses in the united states are free to sit on, and you will not be refused a seat just because you don’t make any purchases)

(ticketing)

(self-service exhibition information leaflet)

(food sales lounge area)

after entering the venue, what caught my eyes were all kinds of visual impacts. it was my first time to see a large exhibition and i was very excited. after planning a route, i started the "taobao mode", taking pictures while walking around. it was quite fresh at the beginning, and i did see a lot of collectibles that i had previously seen in youtube videos. after two hours, i began to feel aesthetic fatigue, and i was a little tired of taking pictures. i couldn't finish taking pictures because there were too many things. after all, i still want to buy some things today, otherwise it would be a loss to drive for several hours and not buy anything!

when i started to ask about the prices of the items i was interested in, i found that the overall prices of the goods in the exhibition were high. thinking about it carefully, it was right. for a big exhibition held once a year, exhibitors need to spend time to organize the items, transport and place them, pay the booth fees, and explain to people on site, etc., which all require human costs. don’t people come to the exhibition to sell their collections at a good price? it is reasonable that the prices are high.

after a quick walk around, i found that the two corners of the exhibition site near the wall were large-scale well-known military auction companies, and most of the people in the venue were private collectors. the proportion of military products in the entire exhibition was 60% from the german army in world war ii, 25% from the us army, 5% from the japanese army, and the rest from the countries involved in world war ii, the cold war, and modern items. from the distribution of the collections, it can be seen that the collections of the german army in world war ii occupied a dominant position and were absolutely hard currency.

(rare soldier from the first year of world war ii)

(guess the price of this original stock m42)

the two armbands with the blue sky and white sun pattern on the left side of the picture below are the artillery and infantry unit armbands used by the chinese army in india. the boss looked at our asian faces and shouted out a price of $1,500 for each. i concluded that these two must be veterans who knew how to treat the person they were dealing with!

（the chinese expeditionary force in india was established in 1942 on the basis of the new 22nd and 38th divisions that entered india after the chinese expeditionary force's first defeat in burma. it was china's most elite combat force at the time and made great contributions to the counterattack in northern burma, opening up the china-india highway with the chinese expeditionary force, and annihilating the japanese 18th division.）

(chinese army in india armband and unit identification badge)

the collection of the us marine corps and china. you may only know that the us marine corps fought in the pacific during world war ii. in fact, the us marine corps has been stationed in china since the qing dynasty. their main task is to protect the safety of the leased area. friends who want to know more about this history can check it out online.

this old man has collected world war ii military watches for decades. i came over with my camera to take pictures. the old man slowly opened the lid of the watch box and told me to take pictures of them. then he explained to me how to distinguish the world war ii army aviation a11 watches.

on friday, the scene was mostly composed of middle-aged and elderly people, many of whom were old men in electric wheelchairs. they came here more to feel the atmosphere, chatting and laughing with a few friends, and they are happy to tell you the ins and outs of these collections. selling things is not their main task. the old guys came here just for the feelings in their hearts, to truly live and play until old age!

(many exhibitions in the united states allow pets because the united states has various sound laws that not only protect people, but also protect animals' rights.)

now i will share some of my experiences at the exhibition. this time i saw the real type 100 submachine gun used by the japanese army during the pacific war. since it was a product of the late war, it was made very crudely. when i was looking at this gun, i helped the stall owner translate the japanese written on a canvas bag, so i was lucky to take a photo with this gun. this opportunity is rare. you know, this gun is also very rare in the united states, so i am very lucky.

(those who have read letters from iwo jima will definitely recognize this thing)

you would never have thought that you could see the chair that hitler once sat on here!

there is such a chair here. the owner of this chair is a guy. his stuff is not popular. can you imagine that he is interested in hitler's furniture? we are all playing with clothes, equipment, guns and other things, but he plays with furniture used by hitler. i instantly felt that this guy is more knowledgeable. he introduced to me that this chair once appeared in the official residence where hitler met mussolini. then he took out a picture album and played a documentary on ipad to show me. it was really detailed. he used old photos and historical images to testify for this chair. this is absolutely true.

(the guy’s hairstyle looks like ronald mcdonald)

i don’t know if you have seen the video of this collector on youtube, but i think he has the most valuable collection in this exhibition:knight's silver diamond oak leaf swords”.

the display cases in his booth looked high-end. when i asked if i could take pictures, the boss skillfully removed the baffles on the display cases and let me take as many pictures as i wanted. he was quite confident in his collection!

do you know the general who received this diamond-studded oak leaf ornament? let's see you in the comments section.

how can a military exhibition be without guns? since this exhibition is not a professional gun show, the proportion of guns and other collections is not large. the united states has professional gun exhibitions, and this one we are watching is a professional military exhibition. however, there are still some old guns and bayonets and other cold and hot weapons.

since i took time off from work on friday to visit this exhibition, i wanted to take more photos to share with my readers while there were fewer people. however, the exhibition is too big and there is no way to take care of every booth. i will share this much for now. friends can come and experience the atmosphere here in person if they have the chance. even if you don’t buy anything, it’s good to learn more.

there will be several exhibitions in the next three weeks. there will be a gun show in gettysburg, pennsylvania on september 28-29, north american time, and a world war ii aircraft air show in virginia beach, virginia on october 5-6. if nothing goes wrong, i will go to both. i will share more exhibition content with you then.

(as usual, i’ll post a picture of me at the scene)