What Ship?

I have a set of three postcards sent by Mr. Schmelz to a family member in June 1936. Mr. Schmelz traveled by ship from, most likely, New York to Hamburg, Germany. I would love to know what ship he traveled on. I think it can be determined by the postcards he mailed. However, I don't know how to gather ship sailing dates to try to match the ship's schedule with the postcard dates. I hope an SCF might have access to that data.

The first card is franked with a pair of United States 1c Franklin definitives, Scott 632. The stamps are canceled with some sort of paquebot marking. The card was written May 30, 1936, and the Le Havre cancel is dated June 2.


The second postcard is franked with a Great Britain 1p George V definitive, Scott 211. The card was written June 2 in London, and postmarked June 3. I'm guessing the ship moored at one of the channel ports, and Mr. Schmelz was on a day trip to London when he posted the card.


The final postcard is franked with a Germany 15pf Hindenburg definitive, Scott 423. Mr. Schmelz dated the card June 5, but the Hamburg postmark is dated June 4, so figure that out.


He may have been sailing on a Hamburg-America Line ship, because the third postcard was mailed from Hamburg, but I don't know. If any SCF member can provide any information about the ship or anything else, I would greatly appreciate it.

Regards, Robert

Robert,

I have sailing tables of the Hamburg-America Line, but they're packed away because I'm moving. If you don't get an answer on this, remind me in about a month.

PostmasterGS,
Excellent. Will do.
Cheers, Robert

PostmasterGS,
Reminder.
Cheers, Robert

Trainwreck, first, I don't know anything about ships.. I want to say that is a great set of cards, in that it tracked his cruise across the pond. I think it is very very cool.

It is cool. That's why I'm keen on determining what ship he sailed on (the ship might have some interesting history too, with World War II about to spring).
Regards, Robert

Sorry, Robert. No books yet. Probably going to be at least another 3-4 weeks. They're coming via ship.

PostmasterGS, No prob.
Robert

Robert,

The Hamburg card was not mailed from the Hamburg-America line. A couple telltale signs --

First, the Hamburg-America ships used distinctive cancels. There were dozens in use around the time of this card, but here's a representative sample.



Second, the card has a Luftpost Sonderstempel (airmail special cancel), which could not have come from an onboard mailing.

I haven't been able to locate any info on the sender, but I found a little on the recipient.

Bruce H, Wark, Jr., was born in La Junta, CO, on 25 Feb 1922. So, when he received these cards, he would have been 14 years old. He died on 20 Jun 1999.

Thanks PostmasterGS for the info.

I didn't think the cards were posted from the ship (except possibly the first card). What I'm trying to determine is which ship he might have been travelling on, based on the dates and locations the cards were mailed. I guessed it might be a Hamburg-America Line ship because he ended up in Hamburg. This is the estimated itinerary:
Le Havre - around May 30, 1936
British channel port (Southampton?, Portsmouth?) - around June 2, 1936
Hamburg - around June 4, 1936
I don't have access to the sailing dates for trans-Atlantic ships, so I am hoping an SCF might have that info.

Thanks, Robert

Unfortunately the Hamburg-America tables published by the German seapst study group stop at the end of WWI. Let me do some more digging and see if I can narrow it down.

Robert,

I haven't found tables for 1936, but here's a suggestion...

There's quite good info available on the Internet regarding westbound voyages. For example, there are passenger lists for arrivals in New York (can't post a link because they're on Ancestry.com), and departure lists from Bremen (here). Unfortunately, there aren't good records headed eastbound, at least post-1934. It might be possible to use the westbound voyages to estimate the ship he would have made the eastbound voyage on, however, depending on the downtime between the ship arriving and departing Bremerhaven (not sure if this would be days or weeks).

For example, since you know he arrived around 5/6 June, you can go here and see the ships while left Bremerhaven soon after. One of those was likely his ship.