I was going through some files this morning and came across a couple of interesting ones; a wholesale marine fish price list from 1982 and an invoice for a marine fish export from Jakarta in 1981. Thought some folks might get a kick out of seeing these. The history was this: I worked in the pet industry in southeast Michigan from 1972 through 1985. In 1980, a new wholesaler opened up - Pacific Sealife Distributors. He did not import from the Philippines, only Hawaii, Jakarta and New Caledonia. The reasoning was that cyanide use was rampant in the Philippines at the time, and those fish were pretty much junk. I became friends with the owner. He made a number of trips to Jakarta to firm up the business relationship with the exporter. One night, he called me from there. He said that he was going to close up his business. One of the staff at the exporter's told him, "We now can get you many batman with magic". What did that mean? Well, they called adult emperor angels "batman" due to the eye mask, and well, you can figure out what the "magic" was. The quality of the fish tanked within a few months as cyanide use invaded the area. The retail store I worked for bought his tanks, and I got all of his papers and contact lists. I ended up starting a small mail order fish business, Midwest Marine Life.
He had a strange pricing structure - and was quite a bit more expensive than other wholesalers at the time.
Here is an invoice from C.V. Banyu Biru. You pretty much received what they decided to send you thus this order containing 24 maroon clowns (hard to sell, low value).
He had a strange pricing structure - and was quite a bit more expensive than other wholesalers at the time.
Here is an invoice from C.V. Banyu Biru. You pretty much received what they decided to send you thus this order containing 24 maroon clowns (hard to sell, low value).