Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
12:11:35am
Here's the last one to give you a flavor:
https://stamporama.com/discboard/disc_ma ...
So I am launching a new "posting" challenge!
It's a posting contest. The rules are simple.
The theme is : Airmail
Create an interesting post consistent with the theme - either some information others may find useful or just plain interesting, or show a single page or multiple pages of a collection (but let's keep it to 5 or less so we don't overload the thread). Please make page images 800-900 pixels wide. Check the previous contest using the link above to see what the last one looked like.
Post your entry in this thread. Comments and discussions mixed in with the displays are welcome.
Viewers are asked to hit the "like button" to vote. The highest number of likes at the end of the contest period will be declared the winner.
Contest will run for 2 weeks and close at 10:00pm EDT Saturday April 23 (that's when I will review the "likes").
Here is the prize for the winner:
1938 Baltimore to Bermuda First Flight (with Bermuda arrival backstamp).
I will mail it anywhere in the world, free of charge.
Let's see some interesting entries!
Roy
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OK, here is my post.
Registered from San Leandro, CA to Hannover, Germany in 4 days in 1954. I'm not sure you can even get a physical object that far in four days these days. Certainly not registered. I don't know how return receipt worked. Anybody know???
Backstamps document movement:
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09:50:39am
AR service: Avis de Reception (=AR : French is the official language of the UPU) otherwise known as "Acknowledgement of Receipt"
At the time of mailing, a card with the sender's address is attached to the article. At the time of delivery, the receiving post office is supposed to detach the card, get the recipient's signature on it and mail it back to the sender.
Here is a US cover with the card still attached because the item was undeliverable:
Here is a 1939 AR card returned to Canada from British Guiana
(All items shown from my "Sold database").
I can also show a bunch of more modern covers where the receiving post office failed to follow the proper procedure and delivered the item with the card still attached.
This service is still available (at least in Canada) I don't know about the USA since the US demoted international registration.
Roy
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What exactly constitutes "Air Mail?" Particularly after a certain date. I get mail that is marked via Air Mail but that is laughable mostly. I suppose mail from other continents must somehow go via air but I wonder sometimes if slow boats are not commonly used today.
Unlike this nice cover from 1964 that took two days from Germany (Kurten) to Chicago, Illinois, USA.
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Here is one from my Minnesota Cancels collection from June 7th 1930, the Northwest Aircraft Exposition in Saint Paul.
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11:50:25am
"What exactly constitutes "Air Mail?" "
Whatever you want it to mean. If you can make it fit the theme, go for it.
Roy
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OK. This is what passes for Air Mail today. A cover recently received (26 Mar) from Australia. Nineteen days. Hmmmmmm. I wonder how much time this cover was actually in the air or moving versus sitting in a pile somewhere? My guess is 5 days of moving and 14 days of lying in a bag waiting to be moved to another pile.
The surprising thing to me is that I looked at this as not too bad. It could have been much worse! 
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The first two pages in my Airmail album! The Curtis Jenny Issue- C1-3.
Note that in my collection, I don't care if I have a single, block or cover as long as it's a representative of that stamp!
So page one has C1 on cover... you may notice it's mailed to Alvin Filstrup, so while it's business it's also philatelic in nature.
And representing C2 is a mint single and C3 I found this block to die for, so I hit that bid button!
Second page is C2 on cover from New Jersey to Ohio.
And since someone was bound to ask about the reverse side of the covers...
Top image is the C1 cover. Interesting that it was mailed on Dec 31, 1925 and received on Jan2 1926, over the date line!
Bottom image is the C2 cover, from NJ to Ohio Jan 31 to Feb 2, 1921... I don't know anything about the labels used to seal the envelope.... anyone?
Both covers traveled two days.
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WWII air mail to Switzerland with "Opened by Examiner" label.
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09:49:14pm
Who has some nice classic airmail sets to show off? It doesn't have to be all covers.
I have a soft spot for those large French Colonial airmail issues.
One of my favorites is the first airmail set of Nicaragua ... two biplanes flying by Mt. Momotombo. Anybody got a complete set (there were multiple printings) to show off?
How about those great French airplane stamps of c1960, including the high value helicopter and the currency revaluations? Or the various French Aviation heroes on their stamps? A one paragraph clip from Wikipedia will provide the bio for each stamp.
Somebody want to write a condensed history of US C3a ? If you don't know what that is, you NEED the history!
How about a philatelic literature survey of basic info on the Zeppelins ... my shelf includes Seiger, and Curley's "The Graf Zeppelin Flights to South America" (which includes flight log details), but I'm sure somebody out there has more. Or a book list for any airmail topic.
Who is going to explain the WWII "Horseshoe Route"? with sample covers ... gonna make me do it? What's a "two ocean" airmail cover? Show us!!!
Transatlantic WWII censors ... how to tell if your cover was censored in Bermuda ... and why Bermuda? What does I.E./ mean on a British censor tape? What do different countries censor tapes look like, even?
How about FDCs of US airmail stamps? I just sold a set of Transport airmail FDC's this week with a cachet that I have never seen before ... and I have now been selling covers almost exclusively for 22 years. and BTW, what is a "Transport airmail"??! (and why is it such a funny looking airplane?) An overview of nice cachets might stir some interest.
These are all ideas/topics that I am confident our membership would love to read about. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Let's be creative and share!
If you are working on something, post a précis here ... let us know it's coming. Anticipation is a good thing.
Roy
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09:56:45pm
"WWII air mail to Switzerland with "Opened by Examiner" label."
Did you notice that your cover was opened by censors twice? The second time in Bermuda, and was intercepted by British censors from an American plane?
Roy
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As suggested by Roy, herewith a lovely airmail set.
San Marino 1931 set of 10.
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@Roy — About that “funny looking airplane”: The airplane pictured in the “Transport Issue” is a hybrid, combining design elements of different airliners/transports of the time.
As a result, the design looks kinda sorta like a Douglas DC-3, a Constellation (the triple vertical stabilizers), and a Convair C-46 transport. Apparently, someone in the Post Office Department decided that the government couldn’t be seen as advertising one manufacturer’s planes over another. But I bet you already know that!
Bob
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I was watching the old movie "Flying Tigers" (John Wayne) this past weekend and the models used took the design one step further by adding a cross piece across the top tips.
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11:38:23am
From Wikipedia
John Wayne's character arrives at the Tigers' airbase on the one-off Capelis XC-12, a failed 1933 twin-engine transport aircraft that found new life at RKO as a non-flying movie prop. The aircraft was also used in Five Came Back and other films.
Capelis XC-12
The Capelis XC-12 was a failed 1933 aircraft design that most notably was used as a prop in the films Five Came Back, The Flying Tigers, The Falcon in Danger, and Immortal Sergeant. The aircraft featured unusual twin horizontal tail structures supported by three vertical tail surfaces. Construction and finishing methods involved using sheet metal screws which ultimately led to the abandoning of the project.
Roy
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1919 (21 June) Military Flight. Ben Gardane to Tunis. Cover franked by 1st Airmail tied by Zarzis cds, with another strike at left, sent to Ben Gardane with airmail bs of 22 June (Mu. 2-2a var.; the first flight had taken place April 20th). Information taken from auction catalog).
Estonia to Germany - 1927. Information appreciated
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A few years before her death in 2005, my mother found a box of covers, most with enclosures, at an antique store and bought it for me. It was a surprising gift — I didn’t know that she knew enough about philately to realize that it was a goldmine in an historical sense if not a financial sense. (She wouldn’t tell me how much she paid for it, however.)
The old letters represent a partial correspondence between an American Army soldier, Luster Main, of Kansas City, Kansas, and his parents. The earliest letters come from the time in Luster’s late teens when he was a counsellor at a summer camp for kids, through his enlistment and training in the Army, his deployment to Europe in 1944, his capture by Germans during his first day in battle (the Battle of the Bulge), and his repatriation after the war.
This cover is typical of Luster's letters (coincidentally, it was postmarked on my sister's birthday; she was six, and I was just under two years of age):
The correspondence is partial because few letters to Luster from his parents were included. (From my own combat experience in Vietnam, it’s a challenge to keep mail from home.)
Among the most interesting covers/letters are processed V-Mail letters between Luster’s parents and his commanding officer during the period when Luster was missing and his parents were trying to learn his fate.
Most poignantly, one of his parents’ V-Mail letters the Luster’s commander was returned to them in a special return V-Mail envelope marked with the notation, “DECEASED”. Others include Luster’s first letter to his parents as a POW.
Most of Luster’s letters were sent by air mail. At that time, most American (and German) soldiers in combat zones had free-franking privileges, but free-franked mail went by ground transportation. If they wanted faster communication, they had to pay the 6-cents postage, and nearly all of Luster’s letters are franked with the 6-cent Transport Issue stamps. In one letter, Luster admits that it’s extravagant to use airmail. In another he profusely (and seriously) thanks his parents for sending him money. Not $20, not $10, not $5, but a single dollar. Of course, many members of Stamporama remember when a buck was a big deal. I remember when my allowance was raised from 50 cents a week to 75 cents!
Bob
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12:36:45pm
"Estonia to Germany - 1927. Information appreciated"
Lufthansa 1927 Route Maps and Timetable
http://www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/ ...
Cover went from Baltiski Estonia (now find it on maps as Paldiski Estonia, just west of Tallinn) to Berlin. That's a long 600 mile flight direct for the time, so the plane likely made stops in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland before arriving in Berlin. The timetable link above might confirm this, but I have not had time to download all the pages and study it.
From Berlin, it went to Leipzig (arriving the same day, the 16th) and then Plauen. The boxed red handstamp translated means: Forwarded by Air / Branch Airmail Post Office / Berlin Central Airport. Looks like it went all the way to Plauen by air.
Roy
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Thank you Roy - great information
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My entry is a 'mini-exhibit', consisting of 3 covers on the 1934 Mail Emergency, a mail experiment known colloquially as the "Mail Fiasco". I am referencing the book Air Mail Emergency: 1934 by Norman E. Borden, Jr. (1968).
On February 9, 1934 FDR annulled all contracts with commercial (i.e., airline) carriers, by Executive Order 6591. This was done to address the perception that private commercial carriers were gouging the US Government for airmail services. The vision was that the Army Air Corp would take over carriage of air mail, under the name of Army Air Corps Mail Operation (AACMO), beginning on February 19. Of course, the Army Air Corps was ill-prepared in both equipment and training to 'carry the mail' on this project which was a miserable failure with the result of some 65 airplane crashes and the death of 14 pilots over the course of less than 3 months.
On the eve of this transition, Transcontinental and Western Airlines endeavored to demonstrate the utility of a new airplane.
Here is an excerpt from the book:
" About 9:00PM, Pacific Time, mechanics at the Union Terminal at Los Angeles were hurriedly getting a new type of cabin monoplane ready for a special flight. The airplane had been designed and built at Santa Monica during 1933 by the Douglas Aircraft Company for Transcontinental and Western Airlines. Since accepting delivery of the machine in December, TWA pilots had been conducting a vigorous flight test and evaluation program. The ship had not been put into regular airline service. Called the DC-1, it was the first of a series that had been ordered by both TWA and Eastern Air Transport.
On the ground at Union Terminal, standing close by the airplane to supervise the servicing and preflight check, stood the vice president and chief pilot of TWA, Jack Frye. With him was Captain Eddie Rickenbacker of Eastern Air Transport. Together, they were going to carry the last load of mail that would be flown from the West Coast to New York before the air mail contract cancellations became effective. As the Department of Commerce weather forecaster had told Frye that he would have to reach Newark by 3:00 Monday, if he hoped to be able to land, all possible haste was being made to get the flight under way.
At 9:50, with Frye in the pilot's seat and Rickenbacker in the copilot's seat beside him, the DC-1 was taxied to the terminal's flight dock. A few minutes before, Rickenbacker had told and interviewing reporter that he considered the deaths of Air Corps pilots Grenier, White, and Eastham "legalized murder," and he had predicted there would be many more accidents. The present flight was to be a demonstration of the airlines' superior ability to fly the mails.
Mail sacks weighing several hundred pounds were hurriedly loaded into the ship's forward cargo compartment. Then the cargo door was closed and locked. At exactly 10:00 PM Jack Frye signaled the ground crew to pull the wheel chocks. A few minutes later, he and Rickenbacker were airborne. Both men knew that theirs was now a life or death race with the weather. They climbed to an unprecedented 20,000 feet to fly above the worst of the storm and to take advantage of a prevailing west-to-east tail wind at that altitude. When they came down through heavy overcast to make a refueling stop at Columbus, Ohio, the ceiling was down to 1,000 feet. Fifteen minutes after they had left the Columbus Airport, snow moved in and completely closed the field to all further traffic.
They barely beat the storm to Newark. Frye landed the airplane and taxied to the Newark Terminal building just a few minutes after 2:00 PM, Monday. The average speed, including three stops for fuel had been 203 miles per hour. Although Frye's total elapsed time of 13 hours, four minutes and 20 seconds was three hours more than the fastest time of racing planes, he and Rickenbacker had established a new transcontinental record for transport aircraft that was 5 hours less than the best previous time ever made by an airliner.
The demonstration had succeeded even beyond its purpose. From that moment on, every other type of commercial airliner in the world was obsolete."
I presume the cover was pre-printed with the cachet, which guessed at an elapsed time some TWO HOURS more than was actually required for the flight!
Here's a contemporary cover carried by the AACMO, posted the evening of February 19, in Chicago. It probably did not leave the ground until the following day, as evidenced by the receiver mark, similar to the one on the demo cover:
Now, here's a cover from the last day of AACMO operations, May 7, 1934 from Newark, NJ, and the first day of commercial operations from Tacoma, the next day:
In all honesty, the mail experiment yielded many hard-won lessons, not least was the recognition that the Army Air Corps was utterly unprepared to undertake cross-country operations such as would be required for strategic bombing. Billy Mitchell recognized, very early on during this experiment that "it would result in a much more effective Air Corps and it would aid in the development of aviation as a means of national defense." The rest, as they say, is history!
An interesting postscript to this episode is that our friend Bill Frye returned, in a new airplane called the Gamma 2D, built by Northrop Aviation, just to put a second bookend on the whole episode, by setting ANOTHER cross-continental record on May 13, 1934 once again flying from Los Angeles to Newark, NJ in 11 hours, 31 minutes, including a 10-minute fuel stop in Kansas City. Here is a photo of the plane, taken not long after the event:
The plane was carrying 335 pounds of mail. I would just LOVE to add one of those covers to my collection! The hunt continues!
Enjoy,
-Paul
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These Cuba airmail stamps are among my favourites:
The stamps, which picture the Lockheed Constellation airliner, were issued in 1953, before the Cuban Revolution, the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and the Cuban Missile Crisis, in other words back when the world sort of made sense. (I had just joined the U.S. Navy when the missile crisis occurred. On the second or perhaps third day of boot camp in San Diego we recruits were ordered to assemble on the "grinder" parade ground for an announcement. The announcement? Because of the missile crisis, our four-year enlistments were being extended indefinitely. I never did hear whether those orders had been rescinded, but it didn't matter because the Navy didn't really want me after I was wounded in Vietnam.
The "Connie" is my favourite airliner, which I had the good fortune to fly in just one time, but what a flight! It was a Military Air Transport Service (MATS) flight From Travis Air Force Base in California to Tachikawa AFB in Japan, with stops for food and fuel at Hickham Field in Hawaii and Wake Island. Twenty-six hours in the air. I was travelling to Japan to begin my two year tour of duty as a hospital corpsman at the U.S. Navy hospital in Yokosuka, Japan.
The stamps aren't rare, but the two high-value ones will probably put you back $75, if you can find them.
Bob
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I've been meaning to research this tatty cover for years. Posted in 1929 from the Ferencvaros Football Club in Budapest to Rio de Janeiro. The franking is impressive, totalling 18.94 pengo, which was equivalent to around US$3.50 at the time.
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Bob:
"The old letters represent a partial correspondence between an American Army soldier, Luster Main, of Kansas City, Kansas, and his parents. The earliest letters come from the time in Luster’s late teens when he was a counsellor at a summer camp for kids, through his enlistment and training in the Army, his deployment to Europe in 1944, his capture by Germans during his first day in battle (the Battle of the Bulge), and his repatriation after the war"
At the death of my wife's mother, she discovered boxes of correspondance between various members of the family, and her young uncle, ( a journalism student at the university of N Dakota at the time, before he enlisted) who was fighting in Europe.
He was fluent in French and as an intelligence officer was first parachuted behind enemy lines in Normandy for the preparation of the Allied invasion, and later fought in Cherbourg where he was wounded during the fighting, repatriated to London for medical care, and alas, died of pulmonary embolism, as they kept him in bed (as they did at the time) post operations.
Letters were written almost daily, and were well preserved. The third edition includes additional material from the early writings of a young man growing in the Midwest, prior to the war. As the family was Jewish, and emigrated from Ukraine after the Pogrom's of the early 1900s, this may be topical today. But above all it is an interesting first hand account record of this period.
What is interesting is that all letters received, as well as copies of all letters sent were saved (but no covers unfortunately!).
The family had many writers, and they always made carbon copies of all writings to share among themselves.
My wife's mother kept them all, and most were dated and in relative order, which were the sources for the book.
As a result, my wife self published a book which is available on Amazon, in print edition or in Kindle edition, (should anyone be interested):
Larry's Letters, by Regina Anavy. All proceeds go to a fund that was set up by the family in his memory at the school of journalism where he was studying prior to the war.
Interesting account of life in the Midwest and WWII first hand reporting from a family, with both sides of the conversation preserved.
rrr....
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Well I don't have much interesting airmail in my collection to show and tell but I did attend an amusing presentation at my institution last fall in which a friend of ours spoke about the quilt made by her grandmother that incorporated all the cachet designs for the 14 or so post offices in Niobrara County Wyoming (pop. south of 2500) for Air Mail Week in 1938. Stamps have little to no visibility in this part of the world but quilting is huge (and the quilt is pretty cool). I'm the oaf walking in front of the camera at the 14:30 minute mark or so.
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FAM 28 - First Flight from Naha, Okinawa to the USA
In the early years of US Air Mail, the US Post Office Department divided up all the routes and offered them to the various airlines at the time. Routes that went overseas were referred to as Foreign Air Mail often abbreviated as FAM. The FAM-28 route was originally flown within the US the first flights being from Seattle to Anchorage. On July 15, 1947, Northwest Airlines began to fly to various ports of call in the far east. This first flight was flown by a pilot with the last name of Graf on a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser. Picture below borrowed from aerodacious.com.
This particular flight cover was sent in 1948 while the all of Japan was still occupied by the US after World War II. One of the more interesting aspects of this cover for me is the way that the postage cost was paid. It is a stamp that is then filled in by a postal worker to denote the amount of postage to be paid. My guess is that the lower box was for the signature of the postal worker filling out the details, but I haven't yet learned more about this franking method. Just four months later on July 18, 1948, the Ryukyu Islands (which includes Okinawa) began to issue their own postage stamps.
I wasn't able to find any information about a Ms. Rena Smith, but the Commodore Hotel in Saint Paul, Minnesota was built in 1920 and has been historically one of the most popular hotspots of downtown Saint Paul. It is quite beautiful (more inside than outside) and is worth a visit if you ever find yourself in Saint Paul.
If you ever find yourself wanting to research a first flight cover, I highly recommend visiting aerodacious.com.
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" Estonia to Germany - 1927. Information appreciated"
Since I am somewhat interested in the history of the area, I've looked up the addressee - the business still exists, or rather, exists again! Flemming's woodworking factory was founded in 1864 in Globenstein near Rittersgrün in the Ore Mountains in Saxony, expanded over the years, was among the first who made Christmas pyramid kits on an industrial scale, expanded over the years and produced a lot of other things in wood, was nationalized in 1972, re-privatised in 1990, suffered from floods in 2002 and had to close in 2007, but was re-founded in 2020. See https://holzff.de (in German).
Martin
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During the 1920s it probably made sense for Thailand to look at internal airmail for provincial towns which were not connected to the railway system when we take into account the quality of the road network. (The main road to the northeast of the country, the Friendship Highway, was built under American supervision/finance during the Vietnam War.) Here are three covers I picked up more than 20 years ago. They were as you can see mainly philatelic in nature but there are serious collectors of this period of airmail. Prices can be quite high nowadays. These three are two postcards and one envelope. The towns postmarked are Roi-Et, Uttaradit and Nong Khai. The planes were far faster than elephants for sure
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09:01:19am
Bump!
It's time for last minute entries, and time to start voting with the Like button.
At this moment, Bob's "Cuba Constellations" article is in the lead with 5 votes, but it's a slim lead.
Vote! Help to encourage more interesting content on Stamporama.
Roy
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Here's one of my favorite airmail covers;
The FDC of the new 5c rate of the Beacon Airmail stamp - note the time on the Time/Date stamp cancel;
This is the EARLIEST timestamp I have ever seen for an FDC - 12:30AM!!
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My favorite U.S. stamp is the beacon airmail stamp (C-11). Not so much the stamp although, it is a very attractive stamp, it's the story. Early airmail, pilots had no instruments, and the beacons provided the way. Here in Florida, a route of beacons went from Jacksonville to Tampa to Fort Myers but I can't find one that still exists. If anyone knows of a site in Florida still available, please let me know. During the day, pilots would fly local airmail to stops along the way but the bulk lots went along the mainline routes at night. Probably not the easiest job at the time. LOL
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France C1-C4 are a real challenge because you will most probably find counterfeits in the trade, while genuine stamps, with genuine certificates are quite rare, and certainly expensive.
Here is a reference on the matter, for C1-C2:
https://stampsmarter.org/learning/Gen_Fr ...
I have not found much reference on counterfeited C3-C4. It could be that because these are much more expensive one can presume that almost anything available without certificates is to be considered fake. I would love to find a reference to identify the differences. I think there must be some somewhere.
C3-C4 were issued as an airmail surcharge on mail sent from the Ship "Ile de France". Only 2850 and 900 respectively were issued.
My 4 stamps are undoubtedly counterfeits. Not even worth attempting to get a certificate.
Most of the o/p are applied to genuine stamps, so the counterfeited portion pertains to the o/p. However there are also counterfeited stamps with counterfeited o/p.
rrr...
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Airmail from Australia to my home in the USA is always appreciated since the boat ride can take awhile. This cover commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Moon Landing from an Australian perspective is one of my favorites.
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@ConnieB et al — A “must see” film for anyone whose interests include Australia and Apollo 11 is The Dish. Here’s the beginning of the Wikipedia entry:
The Dish is a 2000 Australian historical comedy-drama film that tells the story of the Parkes Observatory's role in relaying live television of humanity's first steps on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. It was the top-grossing Australian film in 2000. Wikipedia
Bob
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12:55:18pm
Not many votes in the last few days.
Please show your appreciation for the members who took the time to post interesting material and vote for your favourite.
I will award the prize cover to the post with the highest number of likes at 10:00pm EDT Saturday April 23.
Roy
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The first page of my Airmail collection
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Page 2 of Airmail collection
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Page 3
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Page 4 Last one for now. As you can see all are mounted on White Ace pages. I have so many Airmail covers I don't know where to start,
maybe I can start showing a few as I get time.
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My favorites:
3. United States Airmails, by Tooler
2. The FDC of the new 5c rate of the Beacon Airmail stamp, by Musicman
1. France Air Mail (1935-1950), by rrraphy:
These beautifully crafted postage stamps are some of the finest engraved artistic examples which distinguished French postage stamps for decades. Pierre Gandon's skillful and stunningly exquisite designs are featured in the aerial mythological allegories of aviation, and the superb 100 Fr miniature scene of Paris. Gandon's 500 Fr view of Paris is another engraving masterpiece.
The Albert Decaris engraved air mail aerial views of France set (Lille, Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille) is crowned with the gorgeous large size 1000 Fr "View of Paris". Fantastic!
The 50 Fr Caudron Simoun aerial view of Paris is not only beautiful, but rare.
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As impressive as those Zeps are, I vote for Musicman’s beacon stamp FDC.
Joe
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06:11:37pm
" I vote for Musicman’s beacon stamp FDC."
Just to be clear, votes are counted by the "Likes". Make sure you hit the Like button.
Roy
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06:14:29pm
Look at the quality of this content.
Make sure you vote! Encourages more, and that's what we're here for!
Voting ends in less than 4 hours ... 10pm EDT.
Vote with the Like button.
Roy
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Looks like Ralph is in the lead!!
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It seems I am way too late sending in entries but I will do it anyway, as I am sitting down with a beer after doing a three day heavy metal festival :-)
Going through my photo archive, here are a few airmail items I found
I hoped to find my Pander Postjager card among the 1000s of photos but unfortunately it is not among them.
So that's not going to be for this contest...
Jan-Simon
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10:04:55pm
It was close, but rraphy kept his lead by 1 vote with a final total of 9 votes.
rraphy, your prize cover will be in the mail Monday.
Thanks to all who posted and voted. An "Honorable Mention" goes to all of you.
Roy
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BuckaCover.com - 80,000 covers priced 60c to $1.50 - Easy browsing 500 categories
10 Apr 2022
12:11:35am
I was browsing through some of my old posts on Stamporama and suddenly realized that I haven't offered a posting challenge in two years.
Here's the last one to give you a flavor:
https://stamporama.com/discboard/disc_ma ...
So I am launching a new "posting" challenge!
It's a posting contest. The rules are simple.
The theme is : Airmail
Create an interesting post consistent with the theme - either some information others may find useful or just plain interesting, or show a single page or multiple pages of a collection (but let's keep it to 5 or less so we don't overload the thread). Please make page images 800-900 pixels wide. Check the previous contest using the link above to see what the last one looked like.
Post your entry in this thread. Comments and discussions mixed in with the displays are welcome.
Viewers are asked to hit the "like button" to vote. The highest number of likes at the end of the contest period will be declared the winner.
Contest will run for 2 weeks and close at 10:00pm EDT Saturday April 23 (that's when I will review the "likes").
Here is the prize for the winner:
1938 Baltimore to Bermuda First Flight (with Bermuda arrival backstamp).
I will mail it anywhere in the world, free of charge.
Let's see some interesting entries!
Roy
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OK, here is my post.
Registered from San Leandro, CA to Hannover, Germany in 4 days in 1954. I'm not sure you can even get a physical object that far in four days these days. Certainly not registered. I don't know how return receipt worked. Anybody know???
Backstamps document movement:
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10 Apr 2022
09:50:39am
re: Airmail posting challenge! - Results are in ... and the winner is ....
AR service: Avis de Reception (=AR : French is the official language of the UPU) otherwise known as "Acknowledgement of Receipt"
At the time of mailing, a card with the sender's address is attached to the article. At the time of delivery, the receiving post office is supposed to detach the card, get the recipient's signature on it and mail it back to the sender.
Here is a US cover with the card still attached because the item was undeliverable:
Here is a 1939 AR card returned to Canada from British Guiana
(All items shown from my "Sold database").
I can also show a bunch of more modern covers where the receiving post office failed to follow the proper procedure and delivered the item with the card still attached.
This service is still available (at least in Canada) I don't know about the USA since the US demoted international registration.
Roy
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What exactly constitutes "Air Mail?" Particularly after a certain date. I get mail that is marked via Air Mail but that is laughable mostly. I suppose mail from other continents must somehow go via air but I wonder sometimes if slow boats are not commonly used today.
Unlike this nice cover from 1964 that took two days from Germany (Kurten) to Chicago, Illinois, USA.
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Here is one from my Minnesota Cancels collection from June 7th 1930, the Northwest Aircraft Exposition in Saint Paul.
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10 Apr 2022
11:50:25am
re: Airmail posting challenge! - Results are in ... and the winner is ....
"What exactly constitutes "Air Mail?" "
Whatever you want it to mean. If you can make it fit the theme, go for it.
Roy
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OK. This is what passes for Air Mail today. A cover recently received (26 Mar) from Australia. Nineteen days. Hmmmmmm. I wonder how much time this cover was actually in the air or moving versus sitting in a pile somewhere? My guess is 5 days of moving and 14 days of lying in a bag waiting to be moved to another pile.
The surprising thing to me is that I looked at this as not too bad. It could have been much worse!
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The first two pages in my Airmail album! The Curtis Jenny Issue- C1-3.
Note that in my collection, I don't care if I have a single, block or cover as long as it's a representative of that stamp!
So page one has C1 on cover... you may notice it's mailed to Alvin Filstrup, so while it's business it's also philatelic in nature.
And representing C2 is a mint single and C3 I found this block to die for, so I hit that bid button!
Second page is C2 on cover from New Jersey to Ohio.
And since someone was bound to ask about the reverse side of the covers...
Top image is the C1 cover. Interesting that it was mailed on Dec 31, 1925 and received on Jan2 1926, over the date line!
Bottom image is the C2 cover, from NJ to Ohio Jan 31 to Feb 2, 1921... I don't know anything about the labels used to seal the envelope.... anyone?
Both covers traveled two days.
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WWII air mail to Switzerland with "Opened by Examiner" label.
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10 Apr 2022
09:49:14pm
re: Airmail posting challenge! - Results are in ... and the winner is ....
Who has some nice classic airmail sets to show off? It doesn't have to be all covers.
I have a soft spot for those large French Colonial airmail issues.
One of my favorites is the first airmail set of Nicaragua ... two biplanes flying by Mt. Momotombo. Anybody got a complete set (there were multiple printings) to show off?
How about those great French airplane stamps of c1960, including the high value helicopter and the currency revaluations? Or the various French Aviation heroes on their stamps? A one paragraph clip from Wikipedia will provide the bio for each stamp.
Somebody want to write a condensed history of US C3a ? If you don't know what that is, you NEED the history!
How about a philatelic literature survey of basic info on the Zeppelins ... my shelf includes Seiger, and Curley's "The Graf Zeppelin Flights to South America" (which includes flight log details), but I'm sure somebody out there has more. Or a book list for any airmail topic.
Who is going to explain the WWII "Horseshoe Route"? with sample covers ... gonna make me do it? What's a "two ocean" airmail cover? Show us!!!
Transatlantic WWII censors ... how to tell if your cover was censored in Bermuda ... and why Bermuda? What does I.E./ mean on a British censor tape? What do different countries censor tapes look like, even?
How about FDCs of US airmail stamps? I just sold a set of Transport airmail FDC's this week with a cachet that I have never seen before ... and I have now been selling covers almost exclusively for 22 years. and BTW, what is a "Transport airmail"??! (and why is it such a funny looking airplane?) An overview of nice cachets might stir some interest.
These are all ideas/topics that I am confident our membership would love to read about. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Let's be creative and share!
If you are working on something, post a précis here ... let us know it's coming. Anticipation is a good thing.
Roy
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10 Apr 2022
09:56:45pm
re: Airmail posting challenge! - Results are in ... and the winner is ....
"WWII air mail to Switzerland with "Opened by Examiner" label."
Did you notice that your cover was opened by censors twice? The second time in Bermuda, and was intercepted by British censors from an American plane?
Roy
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As suggested by Roy, herewith a lovely airmail set.
San Marino 1931 set of 10.
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@Roy — About that “funny looking airplane”: The airplane pictured in the “Transport Issue” is a hybrid, combining design elements of different airliners/transports of the time.
As a result, the design looks kinda sorta like a Douglas DC-3, a Constellation (the triple vertical stabilizers), and a Convair C-46 transport. Apparently, someone in the Post Office Department decided that the government couldn’t be seen as advertising one manufacturer’s planes over another. But I bet you already know that!
Bob
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I was watching the old movie "Flying Tigers" (John Wayne) this past weekend and the models used took the design one step further by adding a cross piece across the top tips.
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11 Apr 2022
11:38:23am
re: Airmail posting challenge! - Results are in ... and the winner is ....
From Wikipedia
John Wayne's character arrives at the Tigers' airbase on the one-off Capelis XC-12, a failed 1933 twin-engine transport aircraft that found new life at RKO as a non-flying movie prop. The aircraft was also used in Five Came Back and other films.
Capelis XC-12
The Capelis XC-12 was a failed 1933 aircraft design that most notably was used as a prop in the films Five Came Back, The Flying Tigers, The Falcon in Danger, and Immortal Sergeant. The aircraft featured unusual twin horizontal tail structures supported by three vertical tail surfaces. Construction and finishing methods involved using sheet metal screws which ultimately led to the abandoning of the project.
Roy
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12:00:26pm
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re: Airmail posting challenge! - Results are in ... and the winner is ....
1919 (21 June) Military Flight. Ben Gardane to Tunis. Cover franked by 1st Airmail tied by Zarzis cds, with another strike at left, sent to Ben Gardane with airmail bs of 22 June (Mu. 2-2a var.; the first flight had taken place April 20th). Information taken from auction catalog).
Estonia to Germany - 1927. Information appreciated
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A few years before her death in 2005, my mother found a box of covers, most with enclosures, at an antique store and bought it for me. It was a surprising gift — I didn’t know that she knew enough about philately to realize that it was a goldmine in an historical sense if not a financial sense. (She wouldn’t tell me how much she paid for it, however.)
The old letters represent a partial correspondence between an American Army soldier, Luster Main, of Kansas City, Kansas, and his parents. The earliest letters come from the time in Luster’s late teens when he was a counsellor at a summer camp for kids, through his enlistment and training in the Army, his deployment to Europe in 1944, his capture by Germans during his first day in battle (the Battle of the Bulge), and his repatriation after the war.
This cover is typical of Luster's letters (coincidentally, it was postmarked on my sister's birthday; she was six, and I was just under two years of age):
The correspondence is partial because few letters to Luster from his parents were included. (From my own combat experience in Vietnam, it’s a challenge to keep mail from home.)
Among the most interesting covers/letters are processed V-Mail letters between Luster’s parents and his commanding officer during the period when Luster was missing and his parents were trying to learn his fate.
Most poignantly, one of his parents’ V-Mail letters the Luster’s commander was returned to them in a special return V-Mail envelope marked with the notation, “DECEASED”. Others include Luster’s first letter to his parents as a POW.
Most of Luster’s letters were sent by air mail. At that time, most American (and German) soldiers in combat zones had free-franking privileges, but free-franked mail went by ground transportation. If they wanted faster communication, they had to pay the 6-cents postage, and nearly all of Luster’s letters are franked with the 6-cent Transport Issue stamps. In one letter, Luster admits that it’s extravagant to use airmail. In another he profusely (and seriously) thanks his parents for sending him money. Not $20, not $10, not $5, but a single dollar. Of course, many members of Stamporama remember when a buck was a big deal. I remember when my allowance was raised from 50 cents a week to 75 cents!
Bob
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11 Apr 2022
12:36:45pm
re: Airmail posting challenge! - Results are in ... and the winner is ....
"Estonia to Germany - 1927. Information appreciated"
Lufthansa 1927 Route Maps and Timetable
http://www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/ ...
Cover went from Baltiski Estonia (now find it on maps as Paldiski Estonia, just west of Tallinn) to Berlin. That's a long 600 mile flight direct for the time, so the plane likely made stops in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland before arriving in Berlin. The timetable link above might confirm this, but I have not had time to download all the pages and study it.
From Berlin, it went to Leipzig (arriving the same day, the 16th) and then Plauen. The boxed red handstamp translated means: Forwarded by Air / Branch Airmail Post Office / Berlin Central Airport. Looks like it went all the way to Plauen by air.
Roy
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12:46:05pm
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Thank you Roy - great information
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My entry is a 'mini-exhibit', consisting of 3 covers on the 1934 Mail Emergency, a mail experiment known colloquially as the "Mail Fiasco". I am referencing the book Air Mail Emergency: 1934 by Norman E. Borden, Jr. (1968).
On February 9, 1934 FDR annulled all contracts with commercial (i.e., airline) carriers, by Executive Order 6591. This was done to address the perception that private commercial carriers were gouging the US Government for airmail services. The vision was that the Army Air Corp would take over carriage of air mail, under the name of Army Air Corps Mail Operation (AACMO), beginning on February 19. Of course, the Army Air Corps was ill-prepared in both equipment and training to 'carry the mail' on this project which was a miserable failure with the result of some 65 airplane crashes and the death of 14 pilots over the course of less than 3 months.
On the eve of this transition, Transcontinental and Western Airlines endeavored to demonstrate the utility of a new airplane.
Here is an excerpt from the book:
" About 9:00PM, Pacific Time, mechanics at the Union Terminal at Los Angeles were hurriedly getting a new type of cabin monoplane ready for a special flight. The airplane had been designed and built at Santa Monica during 1933 by the Douglas Aircraft Company for Transcontinental and Western Airlines. Since accepting delivery of the machine in December, TWA pilots had been conducting a vigorous flight test and evaluation program. The ship had not been put into regular airline service. Called the DC-1, it was the first of a series that had been ordered by both TWA and Eastern Air Transport.
On the ground at Union Terminal, standing close by the airplane to supervise the servicing and preflight check, stood the vice president and chief pilot of TWA, Jack Frye. With him was Captain Eddie Rickenbacker of Eastern Air Transport. Together, they were going to carry the last load of mail that would be flown from the West Coast to New York before the air mail contract cancellations became effective. As the Department of Commerce weather forecaster had told Frye that he would have to reach Newark by 3:00 Monday, if he hoped to be able to land, all possible haste was being made to get the flight under way.
At 9:50, with Frye in the pilot's seat and Rickenbacker in the copilot's seat beside him, the DC-1 was taxied to the terminal's flight dock. A few minutes before, Rickenbacker had told and interviewing reporter that he considered the deaths of Air Corps pilots Grenier, White, and Eastham "legalized murder," and he had predicted there would be many more accidents. The present flight was to be a demonstration of the airlines' superior ability to fly the mails.
Mail sacks weighing several hundred pounds were hurriedly loaded into the ship's forward cargo compartment. Then the cargo door was closed and locked. At exactly 10:00 PM Jack Frye signaled the ground crew to pull the wheel chocks. A few minutes later, he and Rickenbacker were airborne. Both men knew that theirs was now a life or death race with the weather. They climbed to an unprecedented 20,000 feet to fly above the worst of the storm and to take advantage of a prevailing west-to-east tail wind at that altitude. When they came down through heavy overcast to make a refueling stop at Columbus, Ohio, the ceiling was down to 1,000 feet. Fifteen minutes after they had left the Columbus Airport, snow moved in and completely closed the field to all further traffic.
They barely beat the storm to Newark. Frye landed the airplane and taxied to the Newark Terminal building just a few minutes after 2:00 PM, Monday. The average speed, including three stops for fuel had been 203 miles per hour. Although Frye's total elapsed time of 13 hours, four minutes and 20 seconds was three hours more than the fastest time of racing planes, he and Rickenbacker had established a new transcontinental record for transport aircraft that was 5 hours less than the best previous time ever made by an airliner.
The demonstration had succeeded even beyond its purpose. From that moment on, every other type of commercial airliner in the world was obsolete."
I presume the cover was pre-printed with the cachet, which guessed at an elapsed time some TWO HOURS more than was actually required for the flight!
Here's a contemporary cover carried by the AACMO, posted the evening of February 19, in Chicago. It probably did not leave the ground until the following day, as evidenced by the receiver mark, similar to the one on the demo cover:
Now, here's a cover from the last day of AACMO operations, May 7, 1934 from Newark, NJ, and the first day of commercial operations from Tacoma, the next day:
In all honesty, the mail experiment yielded many hard-won lessons, not least was the recognition that the Army Air Corps was utterly unprepared to undertake cross-country operations such as would be required for strategic bombing. Billy Mitchell recognized, very early on during this experiment that "it would result in a much more effective Air Corps and it would aid in the development of aviation as a means of national defense." The rest, as they say, is history!
An interesting postscript to this episode is that our friend Bill Frye returned, in a new airplane called the Gamma 2D, built by Northrop Aviation, just to put a second bookend on the whole episode, by setting ANOTHER cross-continental record on May 13, 1934 once again flying from Los Angeles to Newark, NJ in 11 hours, 31 minutes, including a 10-minute fuel stop in Kansas City. Here is a photo of the plane, taken not long after the event:
The plane was carrying 335 pounds of mail. I would just LOVE to add one of those covers to my collection! The hunt continues!
Enjoy,
-Paul
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These Cuba airmail stamps are among my favourites:
The stamps, which picture the Lockheed Constellation airliner, were issued in 1953, before the Cuban Revolution, the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and the Cuban Missile Crisis, in other words back when the world sort of made sense. (I had just joined the U.S. Navy when the missile crisis occurred. On the second or perhaps third day of boot camp in San Diego we recruits were ordered to assemble on the "grinder" parade ground for an announcement. The announcement? Because of the missile crisis, our four-year enlistments were being extended indefinitely. I never did hear whether those orders had been rescinded, but it didn't matter because the Navy didn't really want me after I was wounded in Vietnam.
The "Connie" is my favourite airliner, which I had the good fortune to fly in just one time, but what a flight! It was a Military Air Transport Service (MATS) flight From Travis Air Force Base in California to Tachikawa AFB in Japan, with stops for food and fuel at Hickham Field in Hawaii and Wake Island. Twenty-six hours in the air. I was travelling to Japan to begin my two year tour of duty as a hospital corpsman at the U.S. Navy hospital in Yokosuka, Japan.
The stamps aren't rare, but the two high-value ones will probably put you back $75, if you can find them.
Bob
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I've been meaning to research this tatty cover for years. Posted in 1929 from the Ferencvaros Football Club in Budapest to Rio de Janeiro. The franking is impressive, totalling 18.94 pengo, which was equivalent to around US$3.50 at the time.
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Bob:
"The old letters represent a partial correspondence between an American Army soldier, Luster Main, of Kansas City, Kansas, and his parents. The earliest letters come from the time in Luster’s late teens when he was a counsellor at a summer camp for kids, through his enlistment and training in the Army, his deployment to Europe in 1944, his capture by Germans during his first day in battle (the Battle of the Bulge), and his repatriation after the war"
At the death of my wife's mother, she discovered boxes of correspondance between various members of the family, and her young uncle, ( a journalism student at the university of N Dakota at the time, before he enlisted) who was fighting in Europe.
He was fluent in French and as an intelligence officer was first parachuted behind enemy lines in Normandy for the preparation of the Allied invasion, and later fought in Cherbourg where he was wounded during the fighting, repatriated to London for medical care, and alas, died of pulmonary embolism, as they kept him in bed (as they did at the time) post operations.
Letters were written almost daily, and were well preserved. The third edition includes additional material from the early writings of a young man growing in the Midwest, prior to the war. As the family was Jewish, and emigrated from Ukraine after the Pogrom's of the early 1900s, this may be topical today. But above all it is an interesting first hand account record of this period.
What is interesting is that all letters received, as well as copies of all letters sent were saved (but no covers unfortunately!).
The family had many writers, and they always made carbon copies of all writings to share among themselves.
My wife's mother kept them all, and most were dated and in relative order, which were the sources for the book.
As a result, my wife self published a book which is available on Amazon, in print edition or in Kindle edition, (should anyone be interested):
Larry's Letters, by Regina Anavy. All proceeds go to a fund that was set up by the family in his memory at the school of journalism where he was studying prior to the war.
Interesting account of life in the Midwest and WWII first hand reporting from a family, with both sides of the conversation preserved.
rrr....
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Well I don't have much interesting airmail in my collection to show and tell but I did attend an amusing presentation at my institution last fall in which a friend of ours spoke about the quilt made by her grandmother that incorporated all the cachet designs for the 14 or so post offices in Niobrara County Wyoming (pop. south of 2500) for Air Mail Week in 1938. Stamps have little to no visibility in this part of the world but quilting is huge (and the quilt is pretty cool). I'm the oaf walking in front of the camera at the 14:30 minute mark or so.
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FAM 28 - First Flight from Naha, Okinawa to the USA
In the early years of US Air Mail, the US Post Office Department divided up all the routes and offered them to the various airlines at the time. Routes that went overseas were referred to as Foreign Air Mail often abbreviated as FAM. The FAM-28 route was originally flown within the US the first flights being from Seattle to Anchorage. On July 15, 1947, Northwest Airlines began to fly to various ports of call in the far east. This first flight was flown by a pilot with the last name of Graf on a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser. Picture below borrowed from aerodacious.com.
This particular flight cover was sent in 1948 while the all of Japan was still occupied by the US after World War II. One of the more interesting aspects of this cover for me is the way that the postage cost was paid. It is a stamp that is then filled in by a postal worker to denote the amount of postage to be paid. My guess is that the lower box was for the signature of the postal worker filling out the details, but I haven't yet learned more about this franking method. Just four months later on July 18, 1948, the Ryukyu Islands (which includes Okinawa) began to issue their own postage stamps.
I wasn't able to find any information about a Ms. Rena Smith, but the Commodore Hotel in Saint Paul, Minnesota was built in 1920 and has been historically one of the most popular hotspots of downtown Saint Paul. It is quite beautiful (more inside than outside) and is worth a visit if you ever find yourself in Saint Paul.
If you ever find yourself wanting to research a first flight cover, I highly recommend visiting aerodacious.com.
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02:50:38pm
re: Airmail posting challenge! - Results are in ... and the winner is ....
" Estonia to Germany - 1927. Information appreciated"
Since I am somewhat interested in the history of the area, I've looked up the addressee - the business still exists, or rather, exists again! Flemming's woodworking factory was founded in 1864 in Globenstein near Rittersgrün in the Ore Mountains in Saxony, expanded over the years, was among the first who made Christmas pyramid kits on an industrial scale, expanded over the years and produced a lot of other things in wood, was nationalized in 1972, re-privatised in 1990, suffered from floods in 2002 and had to close in 2007, but was re-founded in 2020. See https://holzff.de (in German).
Martin
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During the 1920s it probably made sense for Thailand to look at internal airmail for provincial towns which were not connected to the railway system when we take into account the quality of the road network. (The main road to the northeast of the country, the Friendship Highway, was built under American supervision/finance during the Vietnam War.) Here are three covers I picked up more than 20 years ago. They were as you can see mainly philatelic in nature but there are serious collectors of this period of airmail. Prices can be quite high nowadays. These three are two postcards and one envelope. The towns postmarked are Roi-Et, Uttaradit and Nong Khai. The planes were far faster than elephants for sure
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17 Apr 2022
09:01:19am
re: Airmail posting challenge! - Results are in ... and the winner is ....
Bump!
It's time for last minute entries, and time to start voting with the Like button.
At this moment, Bob's "Cuba Constellations" article is in the lead with 5 votes, but it's a slim lead.
Vote! Help to encourage more interesting content on Stamporama.
Roy
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Here's one of my favorite airmail covers;
The FDC of the new 5c rate of the Beacon Airmail stamp - note the time on the Time/Date stamp cancel;
This is the EARLIEST timestamp I have ever seen for an FDC - 12:30AM!!
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09:25:31pm
re: Airmail posting challenge! - Results are in ... and the winner is ....
My favorite U.S. stamp is the beacon airmail stamp (C-11). Not so much the stamp although, it is a very attractive stamp, it's the story. Early airmail, pilots had no instruments, and the beacons provided the way. Here in Florida, a route of beacons went from Jacksonville to Tampa to Fort Myers but I can't find one that still exists. If anyone knows of a site in Florida still available, please let me know. During the day, pilots would fly local airmail to stops along the way but the bulk lots went along the mainline routes at night. Probably not the easiest job at the time. LOL
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France C1-C4 are a real challenge because you will most probably find counterfeits in the trade, while genuine stamps, with genuine certificates are quite rare, and certainly expensive.
Here is a reference on the matter, for C1-C2:
https://stampsmarter.org/learning/Gen_Fr ...
I have not found much reference on counterfeited C3-C4. It could be that because these are much more expensive one can presume that almost anything available without certificates is to be considered fake. I would love to find a reference to identify the differences. I think there must be some somewhere.
C3-C4 were issued as an airmail surcharge on mail sent from the Ship "Ile de France". Only 2850 and 900 respectively were issued.
My 4 stamps are undoubtedly counterfeits. Not even worth attempting to get a certificate.
Most of the o/p are applied to genuine stamps, so the counterfeited portion pertains to the o/p. However there are also counterfeited stamps with counterfeited o/p.
rrr...
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Airmail from Australia to my home in the USA is always appreciated since the boat ride can take awhile. This cover commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Moon Landing from an Australian perspective is one of my favorites.
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@ConnieB et al — A “must see” film for anyone whose interests include Australia and Apollo 11 is The Dish. Here’s the beginning of the Wikipedia entry:
The Dish is a 2000 Australian historical comedy-drama film that tells the story of the Parkes Observatory's role in relaying live television of humanity's first steps on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. It was the top-grossing Australian film in 2000. Wikipedia
Bob
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22 Apr 2022
12:55:18pm
re: Airmail posting challenge! - Results are in ... and the winner is ....
Not many votes in the last few days.
Please show your appreciation for the members who took the time to post interesting material and vote for your favourite.
I will award the prize cover to the post with the highest number of likes at 10:00pm EDT Saturday April 23.
Roy
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The first page of my Airmail collection
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Page 2 of Airmail collection
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Page 3
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Page 4 Last one for now. As you can see all are mounted on White Ace pages. I have so many Airmail covers I don't know where to start,
maybe I can start showing a few as I get time.
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01:08:13am
re: Airmail posting challenge! - Results are in ... and the winner is ....
My favorites:
3. United States Airmails, by Tooler
2. The FDC of the new 5c rate of the Beacon Airmail stamp, by Musicman
1. France Air Mail (1935-1950), by rrraphy:
These beautifully crafted postage stamps are some of the finest engraved artistic examples which distinguished French postage stamps for decades. Pierre Gandon's skillful and stunningly exquisite designs are featured in the aerial mythological allegories of aviation, and the superb 100 Fr miniature scene of Paris. Gandon's 500 Fr view of Paris is another engraving masterpiece.
The Albert Decaris engraved air mail aerial views of France set (Lille, Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille) is crowned with the gorgeous large size 1000 Fr "View of Paris". Fantastic!
The 50 Fr Caudron Simoun aerial view of Paris is not only beautiful, but rare.
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06:03:16pm
re: Airmail posting challenge! - Results are in ... and the winner is ....
As impressive as those Zeps are, I vote for Musicman’s beacon stamp FDC.
Joe
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23 Apr 2022
06:11:37pm
re: Airmail posting challenge! - Results are in ... and the winner is ....
" I vote for Musicman’s beacon stamp FDC."
Just to be clear, votes are counted by the "Likes". Make sure you hit the Like button.
Roy
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BuckaCover.com - 80,000 covers priced 60c to $1.50 - Easy browsing 500 categories
23 Apr 2022
06:14:29pm
re: Airmail posting challenge! - Results are in ... and the winner is ....
Look at the quality of this content.
Make sure you vote! Encourages more, and that's what we're here for!
Voting ends in less than 4 hours ... 10pm EDT.
Vote with the Like button.
Roy
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re: Airmail posting challenge! - Results are in ... and the winner is ....
Looks like Ralph is in the lead!!
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re: Airmail posting challenge! - Results are in ... and the winner is ....
It seems I am way too late sending in entries but I will do it anyway, as I am sitting down with a beer after doing a three day heavy metal festival :-)
Going through my photo archive, here are a few airmail items I found
I hoped to find my Pander Postjager card among the 1000s of photos but unfortunately it is not among them.
So that's not going to be for this contest...
Jan-Simon
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BuckaCover.com - 80,000 covers priced 60c to $1.50 - Easy browsing 500 categories
23 Apr 2022
10:04:55pm
re: Airmail posting challenge! - Results are in ... and the winner is ....
It was close, but rraphy kept his lead by 1 vote with a final total of 9 votes.
rraphy, your prize cover will be in the mail Monday.
Thanks to all who posted and voted. An "Honorable Mention" goes to all of you.
Roy
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