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General Philatelic/Gen. Discussion : Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

 

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Harvey
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17 Feb 2022
07:58:38am
Just curious about this. Each first flight should only happen once between any two areas. There would only be one plane and each plane would have a limited amount of room. So why are there so many first flight covers for sale out there and why are they so cheap? Was each of these planes totally filled with letters from philatelist to philatelist?
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1938324
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17 Feb 2022
09:30:09am

Auctions - Approvals
re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

The answer seems to be - because people buy them. I had one a few years ago that I found interesting. The plane went up from a small airfield in TX, flew around for a while, and then landed at the same small airfield in TX. Hmmm.

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jmh67

17 Feb 2022
09:44:32am
re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

Well, perhaps not totally filled - but collecting first flight covers must have been awfully popular at some time, in particular back in the 1950s and 1960s (before my time) when long-haul aviation really "took off". People apparently thought it exciting that there was a new direct connection between two distant places. The possibility of carrying mail between these places must also have been more important back then than it is now, what with e-mails and the like. Telegrams were expensive, telephones not as widely used. What's more, each new route was an advertisement for the airline, and for the country the company was based in. Politics may also have played a role, as communications opened the way for trade and diplomatic relations. Events were therefore announced well beforehand, and space was provided for the mails (there would probably not be that much air freight on a first flight anyway). I suppose the interest cooled off when the opening of a new route became a common occurrence.

Still, there may have been limitations in how many first flight covers could be sent by a single person, but there were many collectors (and their friends and families), hence there could still be several bags full of mail. You may also notice that there are many "poste restante" letters, as it was unlikely that everybody knew several people in the destination countries to write letters to. Hence they made up names or addresses, so that the letters were returned (and the post offices must have been good at this because it showed that they cared).

Just a few ideas as to why from an armchair time traveler ;-)

Martin


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amsd
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Editor, Seal News; contributor, JuicyHeads

17 Feb 2022
10:22:46am

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re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

while there are tons of FFs from 50s and 60s, there's lots more from earlier times, too. And because earlier flights were by planes with limited range, a flight from Oshkosh to Oneida might have, say, six stops, generating 7 different covers (A to B, B to C, .... and A to F).

I think that many international FF covers survive because they represent one of the most survivable examples of flights from Miami to Sana'a. This would be desirable both for the exotic destination and a very specific rate (sometimes UPU, sometimes treaty).




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Gudgie

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17 Feb 2022
09:04:39pm
re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

My brother was Business Manager in the Sydney, Australia office of South African Airways (SAA). The Australian Government disallowed flights from SAA stopping in Oz for several years due to their disapproval (and rightly so) of the apartheid regime in South Africa. However, his office never shut down during those years. Many Ozzies flew on SAA from other countries in which they operated. I think it was difficult to arrange international flights to the African continent without using SAA, the quality of their service was better than most, and they had a global presence. I know his office was kept busy during those years handling travel agency organised flights to Europe and North America.

After Nelson Mandela was released from prison, and the process of dismantling apartheid began, SAA were once again allowed to fly into Australian airports. My brother was tasked with arranging several thousand copies of First Flight Covers which were then carried on the inaugural flight between Johannesburg and Sydney.

He's long since retired now, but, knowing my recent interest in stamp collecting, on several occasions he's told me he has a bag full of unclaimed covers from the first flight which is stored "somewhere" in his garage. He's said he must look them out sometime, and send them over to me. Should I tell him not to bother, or should I book a flight to Oz to visit him and split the proceeds of their sale with him?

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Bobstamp
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18 Feb 2022
07:36:54pm
re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

Why are there so many FFCs? I’ve wondered about that too, but I think I know the reason, or reasons.

When I first learned about First Flight Covers, FFCs, I assumed that “First” meant first, as in the first-ever airmail flight between, say, Los Angeles and New York City or Las Vegas and Miami. But then I realized that the “First” of an FFCs referred to the first-ever flight by a particular airline between particular cities. Thus, TWA could “issue” an FFCs for its first flight from Miami to multiple destinations, but so could American Airlines or United Airlines or whatever airline was also serving those cities.

Then airlines started using different aircraft, such as the Boeing 707 or the Stratocruiser. The first airmail flights of those new aircraft, new for those airlines at least, would become the raison d’être for new FFCs.

Then there are so many cities that airlines serve! Each city that was served by airmail carriers received airmail from many other cities, and sent airmail to many other cities. If one airline served 20 cities, it could prepare FFCs for every flight in and out of every one of those 20 cities. The numbers become staggeringly high, and can present a serious challenge to collectors, especially for smaller cities and regional airlines. I think you would almost need a Cray computer to figure out how many FFCs were generated by any new airmail route. My home town of Silver City, in Southwestern New Mexico, is a case in point; on December 1, 1951, the day after the new Grant County Airport opened, it became a stop on Frontier’s Segment No. 2, on A.M. 93 (Air Mail route 93), which had begun operations in 1950, connecting Phoenix with El Paso. For the first time, people in the Silver City area could send and receive letters by airmail rather than have them transported by train or truck to their destinations.

Other cities on Frontier's Segment No. 2 included Deming, Las Cruces, and Lordsburg, New Mexico; Safford, Clifton-Morenci, Globe-Miami, Superior, and Phoenix, Arizona, and El Paso, Texas. First Flight Covers exist for outgoing flights from both Silver City and Hurley to each of those cities. As well, covers from other cities passed through the Grant County Airport from those cities as well as cities outside the Segment No. 2 area.

I have yet to find Segment No. 2 FFCs to or from all of the cities it served. In fact, I’ve never seen an FFC addressed to someone in Silver City or Hurley — there weren’t many collectors in that area, although the Gadsden approval company was located in Hurley. Some incoming FFCs are rare: they arrived not on the first airmail flight to Grant County, but on the second airmail flight, which landed at Grant Country Airport later in the morning of December 1, and collectors apparently weren’t quite as interested in them.

Here are two Segment No. 2 FDCs from my collection, both on their way to a collector in Bedford, Mass. One was postmarked in Hurley, the other in Silver City, and both have receivers added in El Paso at the eastern end of A.M. 93's Segment No. 2.

Image Not Found

Two more Segment No. 2 FDCs were headed to the same collector in Salt Lake City. Both originated in Deming, New Mexico. The one at the top was postmarked in Deming at 11:00 a.m. on Jul 15, 1950. It was flown east to El Paso, where it was backstamped at 2:00 p.m. The other cover was postmarked in Deming at 7:00 a.m. on July 15, 1950, and backstamped in Phoenix at 11:30 a.m. (Note the inverted "VIA AIR MAIL" hand-stamped slogan in the Deming-Phoenix cachet.) None of my other covers include that extra slogan.

Image Not Found

“First flights” were a big deal in those days. My father was editor of the Silver City weekly Enterprise at the time Frontier began its Grant County flights. The airline offered sight-seeing tours of the local mining district, and Dad got to ride in the cockpit’s jump seat. I have a copy of the long story he wrote about that flight.

In terms of airmail, Frontier’s Segment No. 2 was the Wild West, Mark II: Deming and Lordsburg had lobbied hard for airmail service, but within just a few years Frontier, which was losing money hand over fist, received FAA approval to drop those cities from Segment No. 2.

Silver City didn’t fare a lot better. When I joined the Navy in 1962, there were perhaps four regular flights daily from the Grant Country Airport to Albuquerque and Tucson. Frontier ceased operations in 1986, and since then five small regional airlines have served Silver City. The last time I was in Silver City, in the late 1990s, there was only one flight per day between Grant County Airport and Albuquerque. In other words, you could fly from Silver City to El Paso to the east or Phoenix to the West, but you'd first have to fly North to Albuquerque.

Bob





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amsd
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19 Feb 2022
12:08:54pm

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re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

Bob,

i'm more likely to grab the two covers to Bedford for the TB slogan receeiving cancels, although if i saw the Silver City address, i'd grab it up for you

David

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tooler
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19 Feb 2022
12:50:23pm
re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

Image Not FoundImage Not Found

This one I like. I have many more of this type that I have accumulated over the years.

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19 Feb 2022
01:00:26pm

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re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

and our own Randy Kerr loves covers franked with the Beacon

interesting how one area feeds others


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19 Feb 2022
05:06:37pm
re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

Regarding those TB slogan cancels on the A.M. 93 covers:

Tuberculosis was one of the main reasons that my family moved from New York State to New Mexico in 1939. My paternal grandmother was diagnosed with TB in the late 1930s. Despite several hospitalizations, her condition was only deteriorating, and in 1945 she and my grandfather decided to move to Arizona, hoping that its dry climate would cure her. On their way to Arizona, they stopped at the Kennecott copper smelter town of Hurley, New Mexico to visit a friend. While they were in Hurley, my grandfather learned that he could get a job at the smelter, so they stayed.

In 1949, my father, looking for greener pastures and wanting us to be closer to his parents, decided to quit his newspaper job and head “out west”.

Those moves worked out well for everyone. Grandma Ingraham beat her TB and died at age 95 of pure cantankerousness. Grandpa Ingraham became involved, again, in labor union issues; Dad immediately got a new job as editor of a weekly newspaper; my sister got a horse, and I met new friends who soon invited me to join them in their various pursuits — camping out, hiking, playing “Cowboys and Indians,” catching bull snakes and horned toads, and terrorizing small animal with our Daisy BB guns.

Decades later, I learned that a distant cousin of mine was buried in nearby Fort Bayard. He apparently contracted TB during the Philippine War, which secured the Philippines as an American colony, and was sent to Fort Bayard, which had become a sanitarium for tubercular soldiers. I used to walk near his grave, on my way to visit friends who lived in Fort Bayard to or go to the canteen for a chocolate soda, unaware that I even had had a cousin who served in that war. I’d never even heard of that war. I. Fact. Most Americans today aren’t aware of it, even though it foreshadowed the Vietnam War.

There would be yet another “TB connection” in my life. When my grandmother died, she was a patient at Fort Bayard, which had become a “rest home” for the aged.

Bob


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Tom in Exton, PA

21 Feb 2022
05:30:52pm
re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

Image Not Found

Image Not Found

In one of the big cover lots I bought I found a bunch of these cards for different flights. Apparently Perham Nahl had a directory of First Flights. All these cards are long gone to eBay folks, but I don't believe I saw a number above 300 for any flight.

The reason you see them today is the overall survival rate for collectible covers. I have a bunch of them in my eBay store for a dollar or two. They are not big sellers.

A for instance... back in the 1970s I produced the ODDITY Cachet. I printed a box of 500 for each stamp issue. I sold "blanks" for collectors to service their own covers. Once the first day was coming close, I'd service the remaining cachets as covers. I probably did 200-300 per issue. The only one I did 1,000 covers for was the 1977 Lindberg stamp, it was that popular!

I have a daily search on eBay for my ODDITY Cachets. New ones come up daily. So they're out there!

And just like First Flights, covers for that Lindberg era go unsold today! Stuff changes!

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musicman
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APS #213005

22 Feb 2022
10:15:36pm
re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

As David mentioned, I do love covers with the US C11 beacon airmail stamp on them!

Here is a combination First Flight/FDC cover;


Image Not Found


The new 5 cent rate began on August 1st, 1928.




And for more fun, here are a few cacheted 'First Flight Under New Rate' covers;
















Image Not Found
Image Not Found





So many C11 covers - so little time!!

Big Grin

Randy

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cdj1122
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..

26 Feb 2022
02:40:56pm
re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

" ... so many "first flight covers"? ..."

In the late 1920s -'30s a clever promoter
could put a rubber stamp announcement
label on an envelope that cost 1¢, address
it to a cousin living across the river, affix
a 5¢ stamp and then, once recovered, offer
them for 1$-to-$5 each as "Historic"
documents that will surely be worth a small
fortune one day.
Doing that to 100 FFCs is just about minting
money. Make it several hundred envelopes
every time an aircraft flies to a new wheat
field.

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musicman
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APS #213005

26 Feb 2022
03:33:36pm
re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

Charlie,

NOW you got it!

Instant, custom-made collectibles!

Big Grin

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Harvey
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!

26 Feb 2022
03:41:32pm
re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

I understand now, thanks for the great information!!

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Tom in Exton, PA

26 Feb 2022
09:55:16pm
re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

Randy- Your last cover is addressed to A. Atlas Leve,(Abraham Atlas Leve) a prominent collector / dealer of that era. Yours is addressed to NYC, most are addressed to Syracuse, NY. He was mostly known as an expert in paper money, more a coin collector than a philatelist. Not hard at all to find covers addressed to him.

Anyone else collect prominent collectors from times gone by?

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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
17 Feb 2022
07:58:38am

Just curious about this. Each first flight should only happen once between any two areas. There would only be one plane and each plane would have a limited amount of room. So why are there so many first flight covers for sale out there and why are they so cheap? Was each of these planes totally filled with letters from philatelist to philatelist?

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""We have multiplied our possessions but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We’ve learned how to make a living but not a life. We’ve added years to life, not life to years." George Carlin"
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1938324

17 Feb 2022
09:30:09am

Auctions - Approvals

re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

The answer seems to be - because people buy them. I had one a few years ago that I found interesting. The plane went up from a small airfield in TX, flew around for a while, and then landed at the same small airfield in TX. Hmmm.

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jmh67

17 Feb 2022
09:44:32am

re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

Well, perhaps not totally filled - but collecting first flight covers must have been awfully popular at some time, in particular back in the 1950s and 1960s (before my time) when long-haul aviation really "took off". People apparently thought it exciting that there was a new direct connection between two distant places. The possibility of carrying mail between these places must also have been more important back then than it is now, what with e-mails and the like. Telegrams were expensive, telephones not as widely used. What's more, each new route was an advertisement for the airline, and for the country the company was based in. Politics may also have played a role, as communications opened the way for trade and diplomatic relations. Events were therefore announced well beforehand, and space was provided for the mails (there would probably not be that much air freight on a first flight anyway). I suppose the interest cooled off when the opening of a new route became a common occurrence.

Still, there may have been limitations in how many first flight covers could be sent by a single person, but there were many collectors (and their friends and families), hence there could still be several bags full of mail. You may also notice that there are many "poste restante" letters, as it was unlikely that everybody knew several people in the destination countries to write letters to. Hence they made up names or addresses, so that the letters were returned (and the post offices must have been good at this because it showed that they cared).

Just a few ideas as to why from an armchair time traveler ;-)

Martin


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amsd

Editor, Seal News; contributor, JuicyHeads
17 Feb 2022
10:22:46am

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re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

while there are tons of FFs from 50s and 60s, there's lots more from earlier times, too. And because earlier flights were by planes with limited range, a flight from Oshkosh to Oneida might have, say, six stops, generating 7 different covers (A to B, B to C, .... and A to F).

I think that many international FF covers survive because they represent one of the most survivable examples of flights from Miami to Sana'a. This would be desirable both for the exotic destination and a very specific rate (sometimes UPU, sometimes treaty).




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Gudgie

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17 Feb 2022
09:04:39pm

re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

My brother was Business Manager in the Sydney, Australia office of South African Airways (SAA). The Australian Government disallowed flights from SAA stopping in Oz for several years due to their disapproval (and rightly so) of the apartheid regime in South Africa. However, his office never shut down during those years. Many Ozzies flew on SAA from other countries in which they operated. I think it was difficult to arrange international flights to the African continent without using SAA, the quality of their service was better than most, and they had a global presence. I know his office was kept busy during those years handling travel agency organised flights to Europe and North America.

After Nelson Mandela was released from prison, and the process of dismantling apartheid began, SAA were once again allowed to fly into Australian airports. My brother was tasked with arranging several thousand copies of First Flight Covers which were then carried on the inaugural flight between Johannesburg and Sydney.

He's long since retired now, but, knowing my recent interest in stamp collecting, on several occasions he's told me he has a bag full of unclaimed covers from the first flight which is stored "somewhere" in his garage. He's said he must look them out sometime, and send them over to me. Should I tell him not to bother, or should I book a flight to Oz to visit him and split the proceeds of their sale with him?

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Bobstamp

18 Feb 2022
07:36:54pm

re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

Why are there so many FFCs? I’ve wondered about that too, but I think I know the reason, or reasons.

When I first learned about First Flight Covers, FFCs, I assumed that “First” meant first, as in the first-ever airmail flight between, say, Los Angeles and New York City or Las Vegas and Miami. But then I realized that the “First” of an FFCs referred to the first-ever flight by a particular airline between particular cities. Thus, TWA could “issue” an FFCs for its first flight from Miami to multiple destinations, but so could American Airlines or United Airlines or whatever airline was also serving those cities.

Then airlines started using different aircraft, such as the Boeing 707 or the Stratocruiser. The first airmail flights of those new aircraft, new for those airlines at least, would become the raison d’être for new FFCs.

Then there are so many cities that airlines serve! Each city that was served by airmail carriers received airmail from many other cities, and sent airmail to many other cities. If one airline served 20 cities, it could prepare FFCs for every flight in and out of every one of those 20 cities. The numbers become staggeringly high, and can present a serious challenge to collectors, especially for smaller cities and regional airlines. I think you would almost need a Cray computer to figure out how many FFCs were generated by any new airmail route. My home town of Silver City, in Southwestern New Mexico, is a case in point; on December 1, 1951, the day after the new Grant County Airport opened, it became a stop on Frontier’s Segment No. 2, on A.M. 93 (Air Mail route 93), which had begun operations in 1950, connecting Phoenix with El Paso. For the first time, people in the Silver City area could send and receive letters by airmail rather than have them transported by train or truck to their destinations.

Other cities on Frontier's Segment No. 2 included Deming, Las Cruces, and Lordsburg, New Mexico; Safford, Clifton-Morenci, Globe-Miami, Superior, and Phoenix, Arizona, and El Paso, Texas. First Flight Covers exist for outgoing flights from both Silver City and Hurley to each of those cities. As well, covers from other cities passed through the Grant County Airport from those cities as well as cities outside the Segment No. 2 area.

I have yet to find Segment No. 2 FFCs to or from all of the cities it served. In fact, I’ve never seen an FFC addressed to someone in Silver City or Hurley — there weren’t many collectors in that area, although the Gadsden approval company was located in Hurley. Some incoming FFCs are rare: they arrived not on the first airmail flight to Grant County, but on the second airmail flight, which landed at Grant Country Airport later in the morning of December 1, and collectors apparently weren’t quite as interested in them.

Here are two Segment No. 2 FDCs from my collection, both on their way to a collector in Bedford, Mass. One was postmarked in Hurley, the other in Silver City, and both have receivers added in El Paso at the eastern end of A.M. 93's Segment No. 2.

Image Not Found

Two more Segment No. 2 FDCs were headed to the same collector in Salt Lake City. Both originated in Deming, New Mexico. The one at the top was postmarked in Deming at 11:00 a.m. on Jul 15, 1950. It was flown east to El Paso, where it was backstamped at 2:00 p.m. The other cover was postmarked in Deming at 7:00 a.m. on July 15, 1950, and backstamped in Phoenix at 11:30 a.m. (Note the inverted "VIA AIR MAIL" hand-stamped slogan in the Deming-Phoenix cachet.) None of my other covers include that extra slogan.

Image Not Found

“First flights” were a big deal in those days. My father was editor of the Silver City weekly Enterprise at the time Frontier began its Grant County flights. The airline offered sight-seeing tours of the local mining district, and Dad got to ride in the cockpit’s jump seat. I have a copy of the long story he wrote about that flight.

In terms of airmail, Frontier’s Segment No. 2 was the Wild West, Mark II: Deming and Lordsburg had lobbied hard for airmail service, but within just a few years Frontier, which was losing money hand over fist, received FAA approval to drop those cities from Segment No. 2.

Silver City didn’t fare a lot better. When I joined the Navy in 1962, there were perhaps four regular flights daily from the Grant Country Airport to Albuquerque and Tucson. Frontier ceased operations in 1986, and since then five small regional airlines have served Silver City. The last time I was in Silver City, in the late 1990s, there was only one flight per day between Grant County Airport and Albuquerque. In other words, you could fly from Silver City to El Paso to the east or Phoenix to the West, but you'd first have to fly North to Albuquerque.

Bob





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amsd

Editor, Seal News; contributor, JuicyHeads
19 Feb 2022
12:08:54pm

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re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

Bob,

i'm more likely to grab the two covers to Bedford for the TB slogan receeiving cancels, although if i saw the Silver City address, i'd grab it up for you

David

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tooler

19 Feb 2022
12:50:23pm

re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

Image Not FoundImage Not Found

This one I like. I have many more of this type that I have accumulated over the years.

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amsd

Editor, Seal News; contributor, JuicyHeads
19 Feb 2022
01:00:26pm

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re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

and our own Randy Kerr loves covers franked with the Beacon

interesting how one area feeds others


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Bobstamp

19 Feb 2022
05:06:37pm

re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

Regarding those TB slogan cancels on the A.M. 93 covers:

Tuberculosis was one of the main reasons that my family moved from New York State to New Mexico in 1939. My paternal grandmother was diagnosed with TB in the late 1930s. Despite several hospitalizations, her condition was only deteriorating, and in 1945 she and my grandfather decided to move to Arizona, hoping that its dry climate would cure her. On their way to Arizona, they stopped at the Kennecott copper smelter town of Hurley, New Mexico to visit a friend. While they were in Hurley, my grandfather learned that he could get a job at the smelter, so they stayed.

In 1949, my father, looking for greener pastures and wanting us to be closer to his parents, decided to quit his newspaper job and head “out west”.

Those moves worked out well for everyone. Grandma Ingraham beat her TB and died at age 95 of pure cantankerousness. Grandpa Ingraham became involved, again, in labor union issues; Dad immediately got a new job as editor of a weekly newspaper; my sister got a horse, and I met new friends who soon invited me to join them in their various pursuits — camping out, hiking, playing “Cowboys and Indians,” catching bull snakes and horned toads, and terrorizing small animal with our Daisy BB guns.

Decades later, I learned that a distant cousin of mine was buried in nearby Fort Bayard. He apparently contracted TB during the Philippine War, which secured the Philippines as an American colony, and was sent to Fort Bayard, which had become a sanitarium for tubercular soldiers. I used to walk near his grave, on my way to visit friends who lived in Fort Bayard to or go to the canteen for a chocolate soda, unaware that I even had had a cousin who served in that war. I’d never even heard of that war. I. Fact. Most Americans today aren’t aware of it, even though it foreshadowed the Vietnam War.

There would be yet another “TB connection” in my life. When my grandmother died, she was a patient at Fort Bayard, which had become a “rest home” for the aged.

Bob


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Tom in Exton, PA
21 Feb 2022
05:30:52pm

re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

Image Not Found

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In one of the big cover lots I bought I found a bunch of these cards for different flights. Apparently Perham Nahl had a directory of First Flights. All these cards are long gone to eBay folks, but I don't believe I saw a number above 300 for any flight.

The reason you see them today is the overall survival rate for collectible covers. I have a bunch of them in my eBay store for a dollar or two. They are not big sellers.

A for instance... back in the 1970s I produced the ODDITY Cachet. I printed a box of 500 for each stamp issue. I sold "blanks" for collectors to service their own covers. Once the first day was coming close, I'd service the remaining cachets as covers. I probably did 200-300 per issue. The only one I did 1,000 covers for was the 1977 Lindberg stamp, it was that popular!

I have a daily search on eBay for my ODDITY Cachets. New ones come up daily. So they're out there!

And just like First Flights, covers for that Lindberg era go unsold today! Stuff changes!

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musicman

APS #213005
22 Feb 2022
10:15:36pm

re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

As David mentioned, I do love covers with the US C11 beacon airmail stamp on them!

Here is a combination First Flight/FDC cover;


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The new 5 cent rate began on August 1st, 1928.




And for more fun, here are a few cacheted 'First Flight Under New Rate' covers;
















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So many C11 covers - so little time!!

Big Grin

Randy

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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
26 Feb 2022
02:40:56pm

re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

" ... so many "first flight covers"? ..."

In the late 1920s -'30s a clever promoter
could put a rubber stamp announcement
label on an envelope that cost 1¢, address
it to a cousin living across the river, affix
a 5¢ stamp and then, once recovered, offer
them for 1$-to-$5 each as "Historic"
documents that will surely be worth a small
fortune one day.
Doing that to 100 FFCs is just about minting
money. Make it several hundred envelopes
every time an aircraft flies to a new wheat
field.

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musicman

APS #213005
26 Feb 2022
03:33:36pm

re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

Charlie,

NOW you got it!

Instant, custom-made collectibles!

Big Grin

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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
26 Feb 2022
03:41:32pm

re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

I understand now, thanks for the great information!!

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""We have multiplied our possessions but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We’ve learned how to make a living but not a life. We’ve added years to life, not life to years." George Carlin"
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BenFranklin1902

Tom in Exton, PA
26 Feb 2022
09:55:16pm

re: Why are there so many "first flight covers"?

Randy- Your last cover is addressed to A. Atlas Leve,(Abraham Atlas Leve) a prominent collector / dealer of that era. Yours is addressed to NYC, most are addressed to Syracuse, NY. He was mostly known as an expert in paper money, more a coin collector than a philatelist. Not hard at all to find covers addressed to him.

Anyone else collect prominent collectors from times gone by?

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