Survival Rates Of First Flight Covers

I was browsing through the 5th Edition of the American Airmail Catalog and note that many of the first flights did not have sufficient warning for preparation of cachets to commemorate the event or for collectors to prepare covers to be carried. As a result these flights typically have quantities of less than 100 covers reported.

It is easy to identify a cover with a cachet and know that it was part of the event. However, for covers that lack cachets, the postmarks and backstamps are the only way to identify these covers. As collections are broken up, I can see where the uniqueness of these covers can easily be lost.

For the first flight experts here, has there been a study to estimate the numbers of surviving covers after a period of say 50 years?

I can only describe myself as "expert" with respect to some specific flights that I have studied more closely. But I've never seen such a study, and might imagine that a lack of response to your question is some indication also that such a study does not exist. (I know, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but sometimes...)

The sad reality I suspect is that the survival rates of these covers exceed the survival rates of the collectors of these covers.

I'm not sure what sections of the American Air Mail Catalog 5th edition you are reading, but my sense from using it for a great many years is that most of the flights do have official cachets that were prepared by the post offices of the countries or in some cases by the airlines when the post offices were not able to prepare cachets. There are some sections where cachets are not illustrated or described and sometimes that is because no one has ever seen an actual example of the cover so the Catalog is not able to include an image or description. These first flight cachets are different from the privately produced cachets you see on First Day Covers where until more recent years the post office did not create cachets.

The reason why there are some first flights with small numbers of covers was not because of cachets, it was because there often was limited notice provided to dealers and collectors combined with the cost of airmail being significantly greater than regular mail and that combined with the weight limits on how much mail could be carried on those early aircraft. Famous flights typically have a great many covers flown but even then on all flights there was a limit to the weight that could be carried so you do not see numbers in the great many thousands like you see on many FDCs.

The survival rate of all First Flights declines every year as old collectors pass away or accidents happen. They even have been reduced back in the day such as a large percentage of the West Indian Aerial Express covers were destroyed in a hurricane that hit the home of the founder and first pilot of that pioneering airline, Basil Rowe, who had prepared a large percentage of the covers that he flew and was selling them from his home.

Prices for First Flights typically do better than comparable FDCs, but all stamps and covers of every kind are suffering from a declining number of collectors. I just watched an interesting ebay sale of a large number of First Flight covers where the seller started pretty much everything at minimal prices of $1 to $3 and they all wound up selling with multiple bidders and most sold in the $8 to $20 range and a few sold in the $40 to $60 range. There are collectors and buyers out there for FFCs and the nicer ones go for substantial amounts, with the rarer and more desirable ones going in the hundreds to thousands of dollars.

Here is the section from a September 8, 1967 flight I was looking at:



Technically, they are listed in the Jet section, so perhaps the "first flight" description may have been misleading. It appears that official cachets may have been declining during this period.

However, after 50 years, I would think that many of these covers have been lost and since their numbers were fairly small to begin with, they must be very scarce today.

If it doesn't violate any rules here, can you identify the seller of the ebay auctions that you mention? I would like to review those sales.

Kimo, you consistently put down FDCs in almost every post you make.

"Prices for First Flights typically do better than comparable FDCs"

Apples to Oranges -- cannot be compared.

Yes, the Post Office Department was less active in creating first flight cachets by this point in time - partly because the routes had already been inaugurated in earlier years where the Post Office Department had provided official cachets. Jet flights such as these were simply to mark a change of the kind of aircraft being used to fly the air mail on these existing routes. I note that in this case the airline provided a cachet since the Post Office did not do so. I am not sure whether the cachet was applied to every leg of this change of aircraft service or just the Duluth ones as I do not collect Jet flight covers such as these and have not seen them.

Here is a link to an auction by this seller - you can do a search on his other material from this one. He has interesting things. Disclaimer - I do not know this seller and have nothing to do with him. I just think he has interesting things and I admire his selling strategy of starting almost everything at an extremely low opening bid. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Germany-Goo...AOSwwzhZWoH7

Thanks for pointing this out, Fdcusanc. I will take it to heart.

Kimo - Thank you for the ebay link.

Some years ago, I purchased an album that had most of these covers shown. Except for the one indicated, none of the others have any cachets. The front stamp and back stamp are the only clues that tie them to the legs of the flight.

I suspect if they had been removed from the album and placed in a box somewhere, their significance would have been lost.

For otherwise unmarked covers I agree with you that the survival rate is likely to be relatively low. One thing that I do when going through a bunch of covers and I find some nicely done but uncacheted covers that seem to be sealed and unopened and have a bit of philatelic aura about them is to double check them to see if they are actually first flight or perhaps some other event or stamp related item. Sometimes they are not, but sometimes they are and for me it is often worth picking them up since it can be hard to find them.