Chars problem restoring to ps 8.4 (utf8) a dumped db from ps 8.1 (latin9)

Hi, I'm trying to move a db from postgres 8.1 encoded LATIN9 from a debian 4.0 box to postgres 8.4 encoded UTF8 on a rh6.6 (the whole job is to dismiss the old server, migrate and upgrade bugzilla application)
I would like to restore dumped data in the new utf8 db solving the problem of chars like "è,à,é,ò,ù" which are not seen by the application correctly. About the application I can say it is set for using utf8.
About my skills, I have very little experience with db and postgres.

I "SOLVED" it doing this way but don't know what I did and I don't know which consequences would have in future, then I need to know if it's ok...

Starting on BOX1
$pg_dump --no-privileges --no-owner -h localhost -U bugs -f DB.sql (dump in latin9)

$vi DB.sql and changed the first string with the last.
>SET client_encoding = 'LATIN9';
<SET client_encoding = 'utf8';

moved via scp to box2
$scp DB.sql 172.25.98.141:/home/deploy

on BOX2
via psql create new db "bugzilla-database"
$psql bugzilla-database < DB.sql

Then browsing the restored data via the web application everything is ok...
-
Here below I put few notes, it may can help:

DB is not big (bugzilla bugs table contains ~5000records) and dump file not compressed (no -Fc) is about 450MB
BOX1 debian variables LANG=it_IT(at)euro LC_CTYPE="it_IT(at)euro" (which means LATIN9)
BOX2 redhat variables LANG=en_US.UTF-8 LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
---------------------------------------------
example of words seen via "vi" on debian (the words are: attività = activity ; è = è ; l'attuale = the current)
LATIN9 dump file: attivitÃ| è lâ~(at)~Yattuale
UTF8 dump file: attivitÃ~CÂ| Ã~CÅ¡ lâÂ~(at)Â~Yattuale
UTF8 ...and on RH ie "è" is ÃÅ¡
----------------------------------------------
Other notes:
- I tryed pg_dump using --encoding UTF8 and -Fc and -f (to avoid redirect) but it wasn't successful.
- I successfully dumped in Latin9, create a db in latin9 and restore dumped file (meaning I could see correctly the chars via the application)

I tried to be concise (hope not too much).

Thank you in advance for any help!

Bye,
Leonardo

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