Hollygram Air Mail 1 St Flight 1929 Info

while sorting through some FFC I found 2 of theese,both different route, never seen it before. some airgram'ss with them, as well

its a envelope that folds open with this MXmas greeting.

i searched this forum, google and all I could find is there was an article on this (i think) but I cannot seem to get a hold of it, so now I am hoping this great community can help me get some more info on this one.....

as you can see its a cam 29 first flight out of Beaumont Texas send jan 23, 1929 to Zwitzerland






this 3rd scan does not cover the full picture as it is to wide for my scanner




a picture of the whole thing:

Hi Dutch. I am not sure what info you are after precisely. These items are (fairly) common here at Christmas time, sort of what you do in Holland at Sinterklaas. If you have a specific issue please ask


Peter

hi peter, I am wondering about this design, never saw one before, so any info like:
period of usage
printer
number printed
artist

Your first flight cover flew on the inaugural flight from Beaumont, Texas to New Orleans, Louisiana on January 23, 1929 by Southern Air Transport Company under their new contract from the US Post Office to fly airmail on that route. The route number was Contract Airmail Route 29. The western end of this route ended in Houston, Texas. Your eastbound cover was among 104 pounds of such covers which would have been over 4,000 of them which for first flights makes it a common cover. The Latest American Airmail Catalog lists it as flight number CAM #29E2. With first flight covers, where a cover goes after it has flown on the inaugural route normally does not mean much to most collectors, so it having been forwarded to Switzerland after arriving in New Orleans is not related to its being a first flight from Beaumont to New Orleans. I note that there are double bar cancels going through the flight cachet and the airmail cachet. I expect these would likely have been applied at some point during its being forwarded, perhaps at New York or possibly in Switzerland or some other point along its way. The purpose of cancelling those with the heavy double bars is to indicate to the postal authorities along its route that it was not going by airmail, but rather surface mail. The airmail was only sufficiently paid to get to New Orleans, or possibly as far as New York along some other already existing CAM route. There was no transatlantic airmail at the time, and there was not enough postage for it to go by air in Europe.

thank you so much kimo, great learning for me