1931 US Airmail First Flight Birmingham Al. Info?

Any info on the catalogue # for this one or info? Thanks!

As to the first flight cover, its noted in the gray table found at this link. Catalog value is arguably between $4.50 and $6.00 depending on which leg of the trip the cover travelled. I'm not sure how to tell those details apart based on what is mentioned here (unless there might be a backstamp on the cover you posted that would provide additional clues):

http://www.aerodacious.com/ccCAM033.HTM

The stamp itself is very common, Scott C12 ... catalog value of the stamp alone is only 50 cents.

Thanks wt! There is no back stamp on it.

The two choices are 33W15 and 33E15. Since it was going to Detroit, I would think it went west to Jackson MS, and then north. There were 53 pieces carried on 33W15 and 106 pieces carried on 33E15. The cachet is designated Type 33n (there were eventually 30 different "first flights" along CAM route 33, which from Atlanta to Los Angeles and was known as the "Southern Transcontinental."

So not a c12, blcjr?

Sorry, disregard previous comment..is this a common airmail as wt suggested?

Yes, the stamp itself (Scott C12) is common. The cover less so, but still only worth a few dollars at best.

A very good resource for information about the value of stamps and covers is ebay. You just have to hone your search skills a bit, but it will pay off. [Here is a link in which I used the search phrase "us first flight cover c12 33" without the quotes to bring up a bunch of similar covers to give you some idea of the range in values you might associate with this cover:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odk...+33&_sacat=0

Most fall in the $3-$10 range, but if you look at some of the bulk buys (offers of multiple covers) you'll see them drop to less than $2 each. A dealer would probably offer you less than that for the cover. For that particular cover, you would do well to sell it on ebay for $3-$6 dollars.

The image is most likely of Vulcan, the largest cast iron statue in the world. He is still alive and well, towering over the skyline of Birmingham on top of what I believe is Red Mountain.

"There were 53 pieces carried on 33W15 and 106 pieces carried on 33E15"

No, not exactly. There were 53 pounds of mail on 33W15 and 106 pounds of mail on 33E15. When you see amounts of mail listed in the American Air Mail Catalogs, numbers by themselves are always pounds of mail, while the addition of the word pieces after a number indicates the number is actual pieces of mail flown. Since Detroit is not on CAM Route 33 and since it is to the north, it would be difficult to tell if this cover was flown on the east bound or the west bound aircraft as either could have been used to route it up to Detroit. Back stamps are pretty important to have on flight covers unless it was one of those flights where the receiving post office did not bother to back stamp which seems to be the case on this cover.

In general this is a very common first flight and would normally sell on ebay for around $2 on a good day.

Kimo,

Thanks for the clarification. Guess I wasn't paying close enough attention. Always nice to learn something new.

Basil

Happy to clarify. By the way, there have been many attempts to try to convert pounds of mail flown numbers to pieces of mail flown numbers. Some people have tried taking a large handful of first flights from a given year, weighing it to see how many covers per pound there are and then coming up with rough estimates. Since first flights were almost entirely philatelic and were nothing more than a cover with a stamp or two, ones from the early 1930s, for example, tend to weigh about 0.1 ounce. That means you would need somewhere around 10 of them to weight one ounce, and then multiply that by 16 to get a pound so you would expect around 150 (rounding down just a bit) per pound. Taking the lower number of 53 pounds for the west bound flight out of Birmingham in the case of the first flight cover posted at the top of this thread, that would come out to around 7,500 to 8,000 covers. Or if it went on the east bound flight with 106 pounds flown, there would have been somewhere around 15,000 to 16,000 covers. These are really rough numbers, but they should be in the ballpark, give or take.