Non-Philatelic Zep Cover/Fun Moments For A Novice Collector.

A few years ago, while attending a general estate auction, I stumbled on my first Zeppelin cover. It was between the pages of an old ledger book. Within the ledger were also a couple pages of mounted stamps.

The ledger was jammed into a peach basket along with a slew of old picture frames.
Luckily no one else leafed through the ledger. So..., my first Graf Zeppelin cover is my least expensive.

I would come to learn later, it's also likely my only non philatelic Graf Zeppelin cover.



The story gets more interesting.
I was watching a documentary last night about the Hindenburg crash. One of the experts they interview is a woman I recognize. Her name is Cheryl Ganz and I met her at the World Stamp Show when I attended the Zeppelin Study Group meeting. Seeing her has prompted me to write this thread.

Anyway, I brought this cover to the stamp show, knowing I would attend the Zep meeting I hoped to get some info about it. One of the first things I learned about Zep covers, they're mostly philatelic creations. This one though..., I thought might be different.

The scheduled speaker for the meeting couldn't attend. So the meeting turned into a show and tell led by this very interesting and enthusiastic woman, Cheryl Ganz. At the time, I had no idea how prominent she is in philately.

I showed my cover and explained my dilemma. I wasn't sure if it's considered philatelic. It was flown purposely on a local, German flight, and then delivered to the senders nephew in Brooklyn. Cheryl asked me how I knew it was a nephew. I told her, because of the contents of the letter.

Well...I couldn't imagine saying no when she asked if she could read the letter. She was so enthused. It was priceless to be part of her world for a few moments. She read parts of the letter aloud, pausing at one point and saying something along the lines of, "this is why we do this".

Here's a few lines from the letter.
Oh and the answer to my question was, no that's not a philatelic Graf Zeppelin cover lol.

Cheryl Ganz is a lovely woman, I have spoken with her a few times, and was lucky enough to be there when she received the Alfred F. Lichtenstein Memorial Award from the Collectors Club of New York.

I guess I should have wrapped my post up with a link providing info on Cheryl Ganz. http://www.philatelicfoundation.org...heryl-ganz/.

And the moral of the story being...an item found in an old peach basket can bare philatelic fruit and allow a novice bumpkin a chance to interact with a master.

Nice cover, not a common Zeppelin flight. Most zeppelin mail is philatelic since the cost was so much higher to mail. The difference in price from regular airmail was taken by the Zeppelin Company to offset operation costs.