Post Your "First Flight Covers" And "Airport Dedications" Here!

The Lindbergh cover thread whetted my appetite so I have brushed the dust off my first flight cover album and I would like to share a few with you...feel free to post your scans here too!

first Flight for contract mail Los angeles to Salt Lake City 1926.

Second one
A familiar cancel?

From Springfield to LA first day of new mail rate Feb 01 1927
See faint blue stamp on back.

3rd one
first flight South Bend Indiana to Chicago Jul 17 1928.
So says the cachet but the postmark and address are L.A.

Next

first contract mail flight form Portland to L.A. September 1926

Your 1928 South Bend, Indiana to Los Angeles, California cover is listed in the American Air Mail Catalog as flight 27W3 in the Contract Air Mail (CAM) section. This flight was between Chicago, Illinois and Bay City, Michigan and all of the towns and cities in between, including South Bend, Indiana. First flight covers were sent in both directions along this route. Including varieties of official rubber stamped cachets in different colors of ink plus some cities that had dispatches from both the post office and their airfield auxiliary post office a complete collection would require 65 different first flight covers. Your particular cover was sent on this first flight event from South Bend, Indiana, westward, to Chicago, Illinois. From there it was no long part of the first flight and was forwarded to the recipient who happened to live in Los Angeles and so that Los Angeles back stamp has no particular meaning regarding this first flight from South Bend to Chicago. There was a relatively large amount of mail carried on this South Bend to Chicago leg of the inauguration of air mail service - there was 751 pounds (about 26,000 to 30,000 or so cards an covers) which makes this one the most common of all of the different legs of the flight. By comparison, the Saginaw to Bay City leg of the flight had only 9 pounds of mail (around 300 to 350 cards and covers) making that one the least common of all 65 possible covers.

Your other first flight covers, except for the new air mail postage rate one, are all listed in the American Air Mail Catalog as well.

I will have to source that catalogue

As always Kimo, your commentary is always fascinating and welcome!

some more,
an Airport dedication and the 2 more first flight.

Airport dedication Davenport, Iowa


First flight Atlanta to Miami

1928

First flight Chicago to Atlanta

And I just really like the cancel on this cover.

And the stamp is nicely centred and well balanced too, which is a bonus!

That cancel was used often on the 5 cent Beacon, a stamp large enough to hold that biplane cancel. In Henry M. Goodkind's The 5c Beacon Air Mail Stamp, he tells us that Max G Johl identified 18 varieties of the slogan cancel.

The 5c beacon is one of my favorite US stamps. If it were not for my interest in Hap Arnold, I'd probably use the beacon stamp as my avatar instead of the 20 cent parcel post stamp.

My Favourite U.S. airmail stamp is the C5 followed very closely by the beacon on the rockies...Its a great looking stamp! I must have at least forty as stamps and another 15 on covers lol, I need to cull my collection a bit!

Just going off topic a bit

Basil, do have any history on this cancel?



Is this from pearl Harbour?

I can't say. Could be Midway. No sender information on the cover?

Sixth Defense Battalion was assigned both to Hawaii and Midway. That's all that can be said from the cancellation, I think.

'

no cover unfortunately its a cut out
A nice cancel anyway, thanks for your assistance mate.

I have a heap of army APO and navy censor letters from 1942 to 1950, I have no idea what to do with them!

at the moment they are living in several shoeboxes

My collection of WWII military mail is limited to examples that intersect one of two collecting interests. For example, if you had APO or navy censor covers from circa 1944-45 with the U.S. airmail stamp Scott No. C25-A (this is the 6c Transport Plane stamp from the booklet format, so it is unperfed on the right and left edges, compared to the normal C25, which is perfed on all four sides) those would interest me. And right now I have my eyes open for anything from APO 627 (Kunming, China) around the early months of 1942. I'm just saying, not asking you to go through the boxes looking for anything. I pick up examples of C25-A on military mail off ebay from time to time. And I see APO 627 mail from time to time on ebay, but not for the narrow time frame I'm interested in. But I'm keeping my eyes open just in case one comes along.

Basil

Basil, if I see anything I'll let you know