US Airmail Cover - 1937

OK - Another question from my stack of "look at more carefully" covers.

First, the cover has a clear Los Angeles machine cancel, time dated for 7:30 pm, July 28, 1937. There is a second hand(?) cancel with an "Air Mail" killer which has the same time dating as the other but shows "Arcade Annex" as part of the location. Why the two cancels? And the same time stamp (7:30pm) seems to imply that they were applied at the same location. If there was a distance between them, what would the routing be between the two locations?

Second, can anyone complete the slogan in the machine cancel? It shows a very clear "Hollywood" but the rest of the space shows not a trace of ink. And the Hollywood matches to the return address (a Hotel) so is it simply a one-word specific location of the Post Office applying the machine cancel?

backroads, I am going to just take a stab at the two cancels question. I had a piece that was doing the same thing and asked about it and the answer that I got was that one was a receiving post mark and the other was outgoing. As far as Hollywood is concerned, someone else will have to take the up the cause. So maybe that would explain your double postmark. - Jeff

Hard to tell exactly from your scan, but my guess is that the slogan cancel over the Stamp is from Los Angeles, California and the slogan part of the cancel said "Hollywood Station". I have seen that one before, as it is quite common.

Thanks for the postmark info. I have included another scan but it does make sense.



As to the dual postmark, Yes it seems to be quite common and I have several Los Angeles covers, same time period, which use it. This one is simply the clearest example and the others are over the stamps or over other postmarks. Does this scenario make sense to you.

Posted in Los Angeles, Hollywood area, and immediately sent to the airport. The "Arcade Annex" received is applied there before the cover is put on a plane to San Francisco. Same time stamp because that simply applies to all mail processed in the evening?

The machine cancel is from Hollywood Station and the slogan is complete as it is a single line "Hollywood". It is from a Universal Model D400 and was in use from 1937-44. The second cancel is a really nice strike of Arcade Annex with a nice "Airmail" killer. The Arcade Annex would have been the closest station to the Burbank airport which is where I believe the airmail service for Los Angeles was based. May have been used as a transit mark.

Wonderful - now I can write the story for this item.