Lindbergh Flown Covers

Rod222's thread about US Air Mail stamps on Steiner pages has morphed into a fun and fascinating discussion of airmail covers, with the subject of Lindbergh flown covers having come up.

http://goscf.com/t/55286

I thought rather than post my Lindbergh covers there, I'd start a new thread here. Lindbergh flown covers are quite common of course, but still fun to collect, and sometimes have interesting back stories. Here are three from my collection.


This is FAM 6-12 (American Air Mail Catalogue designation). Lindbergh was accompanied on this flight with his recently married wife, Anne, and by Juan and Betty Trippe. This of course was during the time that Lindbergh was charting routes through the Caribbean for Pan Am. For the first leg of the trip, Lindbergh's co-pilot was Edwin C. Musick, the (later) famed Pam Am Clipper pilot.

Next:

This is a first flight cover for FAM 8-1B. Covers for FAM 8 have a convoluted history. As a convenience to Lindbergh, who was then in Mexico City and engaged to the US Ambassador's daughter, the inaugural flight began in Mexico City and flew north to Brownsville, TX -- technically designated FAM 8-4 -- and then returned south bound from Brownsville the next day. So FAM 8-4 covers flew before FAM 8-1 covers. Got it? Confused? Well, to add to the confusion, while flown on March 10, this cover is postmarked March 9. The sixth edition of the AAMC says "Southbound covers are primarily postmarked March 10 with some having a March 9 postmark.

Lastly:

This is a FAM 5-1 cover, the first flight flown by Lindbergh for PAA. I've always been fascinated by the clever use of airmail and aviation themed stamps (including the 10c Lindbergh stamp!), plus a 5c airmail envelope, to cover the 27c rate (2c per ounce + air mail surcharge of 25c per half-ounce).

Feel free to post your own Lindbergh covers.

Basil

Lovely stuff Basil, and the third cover is magnificent!, I'm going to source some of these Lindberg covers!

I have quite a few FAM 5 and 6 covers - here's a few of my favorites.

Nice collection of Lindbergs, Jenny.
Here's my only example, a little tired looking.

Fantastic covers, your last one is a ripper Jenny!

There is a full list of Lindbergh flown covers and covers that are merely commemorating his having passed through a town in the American Air Mail Catalog's Fifth Edition, Volume 3. There are quite a few. I have a fair number of them though my favorites are a set of three that he flew between February 6 through 8, 1928 between Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic on what was billed as his "Latin American Good Will Tour". What is special about these three legs of this flight is they are the only mail that was ever carried on the Spirit of St. Louis, the actual aircraft that he flew in his famous trans-Atlantic flight to France 9 months earlier. These are not impossible to obtain in that between 1,500 and 1,600 covers were flown on each of the three legs, but they tend to go for more than a couple of dollars when you can find one since they were actually flown on the real Spirit of St. Louis by Lindbergh on this Goodwill flight. Here is an example of one of these that I have in my collection - this one was flown from the Dominican Republic to Haiti and is listed as catalog number L-33.

Hi ya kimo lovely cover and as always your information is priceless!
Thank you and cheers

A couple of the first flights shown above were not flown by Lindbergh. Specifically, in Jenny2U's nice group of covers, the second one, the one from Miami to Maturin, Venezuela was not flown by Lindbergh. His name is on the publicity name of the route "the Lindbergh Circle" but he was not involved with any of the flights on this "completing the circle" set of flights. The other one that is not a Lindbergh cover is the last one in that group - the one from San Juan on January 9, 1929 with that very nice C-4 air mail stamp. There were three pilots who flew different stages of that flight: Basil Rowe, C.D. Swinson, and R.H. Fatt.

Kimo,

Maybe you can clear up something about Lindbergh's trip to Havana in the Spirit of St Louis. Here's a cover for sale on eBay:
The seller's description states:

I have a similar cover in my collection simply identified as "C2 FDC," i.e. an FDC issued at the time of Lindbergh's trip to Havana. Did he actually fly these covers back to Key West. This is not listed with the W1AE flights listed in AAMC (5th ed, Vol 3, p. 1424).

Basil

Hi Basil.

No, this is not a cover flown by Lindbergh. It is a First Day Cover for Cuba C2 that was issued to celebrate Lindbergh's good will tour through the Caribbean that was capitalizing on his international superstar fame that came after his 1927 trans-Atlantic flight. By the way, he was not the first to fly across the Atlantic - there were many before him - but he was the first who did it by himself. His fame for this was deserved but it was blown way out of proportion given how many people had flown across the Atlantic before him. The cover you show is listed in the American Air Mail Catalog, Fifth Edition, Volume Three, as Lindbergh L-218. There were at least five different private FDC cachets used for this FDC with this being one of those. There were a very, very large number of commemorative covers and FDC for various stamps to celebrate Lindbergh as it was big publicity. These are kind of like some the US Zeppelin cacheted covers where every town and every ship that a US Zeppelin came within 50 miles of was issuing specially cacheted commemorative covers to sell. This particular Cuban C2 FDC has a backstamp of Key West the same day since it was put on an ordinary daily FAM-4 flight to the US that day after it was given its FDC cancelation. Lindbergh did not return the US at that time, he continued on with his good will tour by heading eastward in the Spirit of St. Louis along with Pan Am's Chief pilot, Basil Rowe.

Thanks, Kimo, for confirming and clarifying this for me.

Basil

I found this today, addressed to my grandfather. As I'm completely unfamiliar with US/air covers in general, posting it for interest/any insight others may have. Certainly is distinctive!

Hi Gmot.

Your grandfather's first flight cover is listed in the American Air Mail Catalog in two places. First it is listed in the Contract Air Mail or CAM section as flight number CAM 2N10. It was flown by Charles Lindbergh for part of the way on its way to Chicago on February 20, 1928. There was so much collector mail that they had to use two airplanes to carry it all. The other aircraft that carried half of the mail was piloted by Leslie H. Smith. He switched aircraft with Lindbergh part way along the trip so that every piece of mail was flown at least part of the trip by Lindbergh.

The other place this first flight is listed in the American Air Mail Catalog is in the Lindbergh section where it is listed as flight number L-41.

There are 6 different legs of this flight that sent mail between Saint Louis on the north bound flight to Chicago and cities between, and then back to Saint Louis and cities between on the southbound flight so for a basic collection of one of each leg you would need 6 covers. However, there are a number of varieties of cancellations and colors of ink used on the cachets and so for a complete collection of this flight you would need a total of 25 different covers. By the way, the horseshoe shape of the cachet is a reference to Lindbergh's nickname - Lucky Lindy.

The leg you have from St. Louis to Chicago is the most common and there was 2,032 pounds of mail. Since most collector covers do not have letters inside one can estimate that there would be 35 to 40 covers per pound. Taking the lower estimate that would mean that there were over 70,000 first flight covers flown on this leg or using the higher number of 40 covers per pound you would have over 80,000 ocvers flown on this leg which relative to other first flights is a very large number.

While this is a very common first flight, it is a fun one to collect because it was flown by Lindbergh (at least part of the way), and it is extra special in that it was prepared by your grandfather which makes it priceless to you.

In the latest Catalog, this cover lists for $8, though catalog values are typically higher than actual sale prices, and given the somewhat rough condition of your grandfather's cover it would likely sell for a bit less than that.

Kimo, thanks for taking the time to explain the history so thoroughly. Definitely a keeper for me, especially as my other 2 grandfathers were the big stamp collectors in the family - so this is one of the few items passed down from Herschel.

Thanks again - Greg

I will happily resurrect this thread.
I am JUST getting involved with postal history after being a stamp collector for nearly 5 decades. Yeah, what took me so long. Life, I guess. lol
Here is a few I am having fun with lately.
I love stories of mail getting lost and Fam 8-4s unofficially flying before Fam 8-1s. This groups has gotten my attention as does combos.
Here is my newly acquired FAM-1 'lost in fuselage' and F8-1,CAM-22 combo, also lost mail. If I need a correction on any ifo, please let me know. I love good info. Thanks
Cheers!

This just came today. The best I can make of it is that it piggybacked onto the Lindbergh Latin American Goodwill 'Spirit of St. Louis' flights . Anyone have different info? I love to get the real story. Not much out there in the way of these covers. I think I did well for $7