Remarkable ~ C15 On Cover... Lakehurst To Lakehurst...

Maybe this will help some.

Here's an example of a similar cover (found on an auction site) dated April 24, 1930. Note the GREEN BOX advising that the cover was to travel via Steamship to Germany, then on the Graf Zeppelin flight there and the cover returned to the US via Steamship as well, along with the request that it receive all of the cachets along the way:

United States covers for the Europe-Pan American flight were forwarded by ocean mail to Germany for the flight to South America, Lakehurst and Seville, and finally Friedrichshafen. The covers leaving the United States were postmarked between April 19 (the first day of the stamps) and May 8. The actual flight began on May 18 and returned to Friedrichshafen on June 4.

Kinda crappy image

OK, I get that they would've been sent to Germany via other means. Then put on the flight in Germany. The thing I'm stuck on, the covers shown on the first page, do not have any other postmarks other than the New York.
Shouldn't they at least have a German received postmark from when they arrived by steamship?
If they made the entire flight, shouldn't they have the small purple double circle cachet?

Or was all this loosely done and not always applied to every cover?

This isn't my area of expertise, but if I'm reading the Michel and Sieger catalogs correctly, here's what y'all have.

Here's the complete schedule for the round-trip flight.



The US covers were transported on the steamers Albert Ballin, New York, and Olympia, and arrived in Friedrichshafen just prior to the flight's departure.

The diamond-shaped cachet was used on covers which began the journey at Lakehurst.



In Germany, a German confirmation stamp was applied.



Upon arrival in Lakehurst on 31 May 1930, a Lakehurst arrival cached was applied.



For covers that were then loaded at Lakehurst, and which only made the final Lakehurst-Seville-Friedrichshafen portion of the trip, a second, slightly-modified cachet was used.



A small number of covers exist with the first cachet used incorrectly instead of the second.

For covers that made the Friedrichshafen-Lakehurst-Friedrichshafen round-trip, an additional violet confirmation stamp was applied.



But again, certain items exist with the confirmation stamp erroneously applied.

So to answer your last point, stampcrow, judging by the addresses, it appears all have the correct markings.

- The initial cover in dis123's post received the initial purple diamond cachet upon mailing, then the red Südamerikafahrt cancel at Friedrichshafen, then an arrival cachet at Lakehurst, where it was offloaded for delivery to Newark.

- LarryBruce's and cfrphoto's covers made the same voyage as dis123's cover, being offloaded at Lakehurst for delivery to NY and Massachusetts, respectively.

- wt1's cover made the whole trip, and has the purple diamond (Lakehurst), red Südamerikafahrt (Friedrichshafen), green Lakehurst arrival (Lakehurst), and purple round-trip.

- My vision's not good enough to tell on bwarren1's covers.

Hope that helps.

Totally awesome information PostmasterGS. The one I posted just sold on ebay for just under $250.00.

PostnasterGS Thank you.

Here are links to the Postal Bulletin that explains all the procedures: http://www.uspostalbulletins.com/PD...lakehurst%22

http://www.uspostalbulletins.com/PD...lakehurst%22

Hi.. Just a quick addition to PostmasterGS post is that for Covers or Postcards with the wrong cachet (type 1) for the return journey( Lakehurst- Friedrichschafen) an additional 50% is added to their value according to Sieger. Sieger also states that on some of these an effort by the American post had been made to correct their mistake by erasing some of the dotted lines and the true line. ( caution is advised when purchasing one of these).I don't have one but this is a picture of a postcard that I acquired yesterday..

Nice cover. These really peak my interest. I don't need to buy all I see or collect them but I am working on, looking out for just a set of four, the baby zep the brown, blue and I have the 65cent green, on cover. will look good on my stamp wall. Don't even have to be in the best shape just examples of what was.

LarryBruce, I hope you can score all of those. Keep us posted with each new acquisition.