Question On Air Mail

-Wikipedia


If this is true, why did the USPS continue to make Air Mail stamps until 2012?



-IBFS

Technically, IBFS, they didn't. Technically they made stamps for international mail rates that had little cameos of airplanes on them (the term "Air Mail" is not listed on them anywhere). But since 1995, there has been no official international air mail rate.

See Scott US C32-76 (the only ones for which I have images handy), every one of which bears the words "Air Mail".

Surely, you meant something else?

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

IkeyPikey, the thread is about air mail and when it became obsolete. I believe C32 - C76 were from way before that ( 1995 ). The new international ( global ) rate stamps are technically airmail rate stamps, since mail to most overseas areas goes by air. But true "Air Mail" stamps have not been printed since 1995!

Peter

I meant to get back to you Ike, but I've had an internet outage in my area. Now I know what it feels like to have to go to the John where there's no toilet.

Yes, Peter... is right. We were talking about stamps, predominantly after 1995.




-IBFS

C150 is Cataloged as an Airmail Stamp in Scotts. It doesn't say Airmail, but it is classified as Airmail.
It looks to be the last one classified as Airmail, Per the Catalog.

C132 (the variation of C127 with Bill Piper's hair touching the top of the stamp image) was issued in 1993, and was the last stamp to say "USAirmail" on it. C133 was the first of the "Scenic America" series of stamps issued for various international postage rates, and was issued in 1999. It was Scott, not the USPS, that designated these as "air post" rather than as regular issues, presumably because of the jet plane silhouette on each of them. With the new "Global Forever" series, we've probably seen the last of these, capping the US air post issues with C150. Sometimes these decisions are arbitrary, or at least seem so. Many consider Scott #1341 (the "Airlift" stamp) to be an "airmail" stamp, even though it doesn't say "USAirmail" on it (which is undoubtedly why Scott didn't give it a #C designation), and White Ace includes it in their album pages for the US Airmail issues. While I've included C133-C150 in my collection of US Airmails, I would have been content with limiting the series at C132 as the Scenic America series really has nothing much to do with airmail or aviation (a point that could be made, however, about some of the earlier US Airmail issues, where the only thing airmail/aviation about them was the "USAirmail" designation on them).

Basil

You surely meant C132 is a variation (specifically reissue) of C129?

Scott couldn't possibly be using the designation "air mail" on a stamp by the USPS as a basis for classifying it as an airmail stamp, since a number of early stamps (C1, C2, C3, C4, C6, C13, C14, C15, C18) have no such designation and yet they are all classified as airmail stamps.

Also, Scott 771 (an imperf version of CE1) has the "air mail" designation but is not classified as such (not even as a CE category).

The above are examples of how arbitrary the Scott classification can sometimes be.

I have a theory. Prior to 1938, Air Mail stamps did not say Air Mail. After 1938, they either said Air Mail, or USAirmail until 1993. After that they just had a silhouette of an airplane on them.

What I think,is that the stamps before 1938 that did not have the classification "Air Mail" were considered regular postage and listed in the catalog in the regular postage section as stamps with no "C" designation. Probably in 1938, when they started printing "Air Mail" on stamps, they plucked those pre-1938 airmail stamps from the regular postage section, gave them "C" designations, and began a section of the catalog solely devoted to airmail stamps.

I have always wondered if this explained, at least some of the missing Scott numbers that are now in the regular postage section. I realize that Scott numbers in the regular postage section are missing for possibly a variety of reasons. This just being one of them.

Can anyone confirm this theory, or say it's not valid?


-IBFS

Well, "Air Mail" did appear on some stamps before 1938: C5, C7-C12, C16-C17, C19-C22. So there is nothing significant about 1938. Whether Scott ever included the early air mail stamps in with regular issues, and then later created the C section in the back of the book for them, I don't know. To determine this would require access to Scott catalogs from 1918 or so. C3 was actually used first (May 15, 1918) and was valid for ordinary postage also. So it would be interesting to see how it was treated in the first catalog where it appears.

The treatment of C133 on is documented thusly by Scott:



Basil

Late night.

Edit: Added black eye to this one.


-IBFS