Up In The Sky! It's ... An Autogiro?

The Union Island stamp is amusing. I have been to Union Island several times on my way to Petit Saint Vincent and can attest that they do not require their own stamps given the goat to people ratio and overall size. It is a stop for provisioning yachts mostly with a small (very small) airport and not too much else. Kind of a cool place though if you like conch shells and sweating. Never did find the PO there though they must fly and boat mail to the other islands.

The preceding four from the stamp mills were just a warm-up act for this stamp featuring another modern autogiro in the pusher configuration .

I give you Sc. 3953d from Great Britain. March 17, 2020
Part of a large set of James Bond stamps, this one features the Wallis autogiro "Little Nellie" from the 1967 film You Only Live Twice.

For those who cannot recall the Bond canon, Q had rigged "Little Nellie" with rear facing flamethrower, aerial mines, rockets, machine guns, and heat-seeking missiles. Bond uses all to dispense with four hostile Spectre helicopters over the volcanic island where Blofeld has his hidden rocket base which Bond later infiltrates, destroys, etc....

The Wallis autogiros were built by RAF Wing Commander Ken Wallis who flew the autogiro in the film, rather than Sean Connery. Wallis found the work grueling as Connery was shown getting into "Little Nellie" in a polo shirt, so as the stunt pilot he had to wear the same and it was cold flying at 6,000 feet going 100+ mph for many hours of repeated shots.

"Little Nellie" is currently on static display at the Shuttleworth Collection, Old Warden, Bedfordshire, UK.

Here we have two covers with cachets, apparently stamped, noting the visit to Monroe, Louisiana, of Frank Faulkner and his autogiro in January 1932.

The autogiro in question was the BeechNut no. 2 which had earlier been flown across the U.S. by Amelia Earhart, but which Faulkner was now taking on a 4 month promotional tour through the south, during which he stopped in 12 states and supposedly flew 35,000 miles. Free Beechnut gum for everyone, and "giro buttons for the kiddies" were promised in advertisements. His last state was Louisiana, after which he sped back to Willow Grove PA, home of the Pitcairn Autogiro factory.

Peter Martin's excellent article about autogiro mail & covers in the 2000 Congress Book notes only the magenta cachet, but in addition to my blue cachet shown below I have seen one other also dated January 13, so I suspect the Monroe Stamp Collector's Club used magenta for January 12th and blue the next day.

I have not found further information about the visit to Monroe in the newspapers I can access, but there is a bit of coverage and advertising for later stops in New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

Great covers! Thanks for posting.

For the completionist.
This stamp exists with the following overprints
Edifil Vol 6 Page 55 2011

Thanks, Rod.
I don't know that I will go for the local civil war overprints. Seems like an expensive minefield. But if one falls into my lap, then I would have to continue.

I do have an imperforate of that stamp, the redesigned lined-sky, which Scott numbers C72Bc.

I have troubled, however, to collect the Spanish colonial overprints.
First I'll post the one Spanish Guinea, then several for Ifni.

Spain's C113 was overprinted in red "Golfo de Guinea" and was issued 23 June 1942. With the overprint, it's Scott C2 of Spanish Guinea, which gained independence in 1968 as Equatorial Guinea .

Here are Scott C38 and C39 from 1947 for the tiny Spanish colony of Ifni.
Unlike the one for Spanish Guinea, these two are not straight overprints of the original Spanish issues; these are different colors from those issued from the mother country and the 5 centavo Peseta is a different denomination.






In 1949, another batch of overprints was issued. These are color and denomination matches for earlier Spanish issues. Scott C41-46 (Edifil 59-64)



ed to remove redundancy and correct denomination.

Fakes, Phantoms, and Fantasies of the Spanish Civil War
January 1982
Author: Theo. Van Dam Page 11

Generous gift from SCF member CALSTAMP (Thank you!)

Here are a pair of autogiro covers from the 1931 Los Angeles California "Air Fiesta," which was held during La Fiesta de Los Angeles which ran September 4-13 that year.

According to the California State Library, La Fiesta de Los Angeles "La Fiesta Los Angeles began in 1894, the idea of a local business leader, Max Myberg, to stimulate the city's economy and celebrate its many cultures. Taking place during April, La Fiesta de Los Angeles became an annual event at least through 1901, and was revived in 1931 to celebrate Los Angeles' sesquicentennial. In the years since, similar festivals have taken place under different names."

The Air Fiesta ran two days out of the LA municipal airport which is now LAX. On the first day, September 12, covers were stamped with a purple cachet which depicts, among other things, a you-know-what dead center above the pylon. These first day covers were postmarked Inglewood CA .






On September 13, the cachets were stamped in green and the cancel was Los Angeles.





I've done a good bit of newspaper searching, but I am not uncovering anything about an autogiro being at the air fiesta, although there were a couple in northern and southern California in 1931. The governor even took a hop in one up in Sacramento a couple days before the air fiesta.

From 1925 to 1931 Ford sponsored a National Air Tour where a group of planes would fly around the country, visiting local air fields en mass to promote aviation. The final Tour was the only one to include an autogiro, a Pitcairn PCA-2, sponsored by Champion Spark Plugs and piloted by Lewis Yancy (1895-1940).

The Tour stopped this year in Huntington, West Virginia, July 8 and 9. Here's a cachet from July 9 which is purple. Martin, in his foundational article in the 2000 Congress Book, notes that the cachets for July 8 were stamped in blue.

Here's another Yancey autogiro cover. Not airmail, however.

I find very little information of this instance. The Times-Picayune of New Orldeans reported on the 23rd of February (1933) that he was in town for a Mardi Gras visit and that he'd stay until after the festivities. The New Orleans States reported the following day that he was at the Hotel Roosevelt.

Maybe he was letting off some steam after flying his autogiro to Chichen Itza. Back in 1929 he had flown from Maine to Rome in 46 hours in a monoplane. He got around....