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Valued Member
77 Posts |
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Seventy-Five years have elapsed since this letter was written. I believed it to be a fake when I purchased it years ago, but found it interesting. Do we have any Hindenburg flight experts here who can identify which flight this cover was carried on given the limited stamps and markings?  |
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Rest in Peace
United States
763 Posts |
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Without any date whatsoever, it is not possible to pinpoint the flight. |
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Valued Member
77 Posts |
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I realize it may be difficult to identify the flight, but I do not believe it is impossible. Given that the cover was prepared for a specific flight, I suspect there may be other examples with the same stamp arrangements and corner markings that made up a group of similar covers that were prepared for the flight.
I am hoping at least ....
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Pillar Of The Community
United States
572 Posts |
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There are collectors of covers damaged in events like the Hindenburg disaster and others. I remember an exhibition at either Ameripex or an APS show in the 80's of a number of items including a Hindenburg cover. But having said that, I don't know how you would get in touch with anyone. Have you tried the APS Library for any ideas? |
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Pillar Of The Community
Australia
1042 Posts |
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The burn marks on it are fake done later by collector / dealer with a match. This would have been a Hindenburg flight cover at some stage but was by no way rescued from on board the disastrous explosion of the Hindenburg's last flight. There is a good video on utube that shows the airship exploding so any flight covers on board would have been destroyed. Its impossible to verify which actual flight the cover came from as no dated postmark only that going by the stamps it was one of the flights that left from Germany. Definitely not the last flight when the airship exploded. |
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Pillar Of The Community
1515 Posts |
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Pillar Of The Community
United States
572 Posts |
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Too bad there is no back story to go with that letter. You could try and trace the family of the person the letter was addressed to but it would probably be a project though you can get 2 weeks free membership in Ancestry dot com and you might get lucky(you could type the name on the letter into their database and see if you get any hits closer to the present day). If the cover was from the crash it could have been picked up by someone in the Navy as it was blowing around the field. But again it could have been (as was mentioned) someone later with an old cover and a match and a good story. |
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| Edited by John Freibergs - 05/03/2015 07:41 am |
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Pillar Of The Community
3859 Posts |
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The cover remnants could be sent in for chemical analysis since a match fire would leave a sulfur residue whereas the Hindenburg fire was from a hydrogen explosion. |
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Pillar Of The Community
United States
2948 Posts |
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Perhaps someone with more knowledge can confirm this, but I was under the impression that all of the surviving mail was stamped with a cachet indicating they were recovered from the crash. I am also sure that not all of the recovered covers were damaged. I have personally seen two covers which had the cachet that I mentioned, and there was substantially more of the cover remaining than this.
My opinion is that this cover screams "FAKE!"
Brian |
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Brian Riley
APS 223349 |
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Pillar Of The Community
1515 Posts |
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Here's a Hindenburg crash cover which was sold by Spink for $15,000.  Quote:
Sieger #454Aa, 1937 First North American Flight of the "Hindenburg" resulting in the infamous crash of the airship on May 6th at Lakehurst, New Jersey, a well preserved large portion of a cover that was recovered by the Zeppelin Company in its clean up of the crash site and wreckage (Falk Type IV), addressed to Mr. Jules Lopez of New York City, franked by 50pf and 75pf Zeppelin singles, tied by "Frankfurt (Main)/Bahnpostampt 19/Auslands-/Stelle/2. 5. 37." c.d.s. and receiving the general Zeppelin flight cachet with the index letter c of the railway post office, charred around three sides but leaving the stamps largely complete and not affecting the postmark or cachet ... Lot #235: http://stampauctionnetwork.com/f/f877.cfm |
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Pillar Of The Community
United States
2941 Posts |
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There's no way to tell from the face of the remnants. The postage and cancel are correct for the period, but any distinguishing marks which would allow one to narrow it to this specific flight appear to be gone.
But just to be sure, can you post a high-res scan of the rightmost cancel? |
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Valued Member
77 Posts |
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Thanks everyone for your responses. The links provided by Jenny2U were very interesting! I was convinced at the time that the pieces were fake, but found the letter from the post office to be of interest. I forgot to mention in the first post that the pieces are affixed to the letter. The letter was typed on a heavy card stock paper and was mailed flat. Here are some higher resolution scans of the postmark.   |
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Pillar Of The Community
United States
2941 Posts |
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I'm leaning towards fake. The burn pattern is just too convenient -- leaving the postmarks, but removing the dates and the cachet which would confirm the flight. It's probably a cover from one of the earlier Frankfurt-Lakehurst flights. |
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Pillar Of The Community
United States
2948 Posts |
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Quote:
I was convinced at the time that the pieces were fake, but found the letter from the post office to be of interest. I forgot to mention in the first post that the pieces are affixed to the letter. The letter was typed on a heavy card stock paper and was mailed flat. The letter from the post master could very well be authentic. I don't know how well known Hindenburg crash covers were in 1940 or what agency was authenticating them, but this could easily have been forged at that time and an attempt made to have it authenticated by a postmaster. The fact that the cancellations were burned in a pattern that left parts of the cancel in place, but coincidentally burned the dates is a huge red flag, imo. This is an interesting piece, but unless provenance established, will never be authenticated as a real crash cover. Brian |
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Brian Riley
APS 223349 |
| Edited by Rileysan - 05/03/2015 12:56 pm |
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Pillar Of The Community
United States
572 Posts |
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Is there a way to backtrack the letter? Where did you get it? Who did they get it from and so on. There may not be much on the scraps of the cover to give a definitive answer. But IF it is real, someone picked them up off the ground at Lakehurst. Someone down the line tried to confirm things with USPS and then passed that letter onward until it reached your hands. If you can trace the provenance that way you could still tie things to the Hindenburg crash. That was why I suggested earlier trying to track the recipient of that letter from the post office. |
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Pillar Of The Community
Australia
1042 Posts |
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Send it into Sieger auctions and hope to get $15,000 for it. I can't believe someone would pay that amount |
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Replies: 34 / Views: 7,600 |
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Posted 05/02/2015 9:04 pm
