Here Are Some Covers Hindenburg-Catapault-Zepplin

I did some research but would appreciate any information. I'm new here and I'm getting more familiar with the site.
Thank you.









*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***

Welcome to the forum! I believe you posted this in the wrong place - these are not US covers. Someone from staff will hopefully notice this and move them. What sort of information are you after?

Peter

The first seven are covers that were flown on Zeppelins. There were a great many different flights that occurred over many years and these are just a sample of a few of them. You can look them up in the Sieger Zeppelin Post Katalog - the newest edition came out not long ago and is the 22nd edition. It is written in German. The eighth and ninth are two examples of catapult mail. Again there were quite a few different flights that happened around the same years as the Zeppelins were flying and these are just two examples. There is a catalog of just the German ones - of which these are two - that is called "German North Atlantic Catapult Airmail Flights 1929-1935" and I believe the most recent printing is the 2nd edition that came out in 2014. You can get some more details on these two particular covers from that reference book.

The last cover is neither zeppelin nor catapult. It was flown on the D0-X which was a giant 12 engine German flying boat built by the Dornier aircraft factory. Its first flight went from Germany to west Africa then over to Brazil and up to New York before continuing to Canada and back to Germany. This flight took over 9 months to complete since the aircraft kept breaking down and was needing extensive repairs every time it did. It made a few short flights around Europe in the 1930s but the tail section broke off when it landed in Bavaria on one of those flights. It was repaired and not flown much after that. Overall it was a pretty spectacular failure of an aircraft. Your cover is one of many different legs that were carried on its main flight from Germany to west Africa to Brazil to New York and back to Germany. The best catalog with detailed information on all of the different flights and legs carried on the Do-X is the DOX LUFTPOST KATALOG by Dieter Harms, which is in German.

Great covers Bklynjava - thanks for sharing and I hope you enjoy it here in this forum. I know I do.

Chimo

Bujutsu

This is great information Kimo thank you for taking the time to share.
I have so much more to share and I am looking forward to learning more about what I have.

If anyone could give me some idea of value that would be great.

I guess the first question is what do you mean by "values". There is the "value" that you would be given in an appraisal by an expert for insurance purposes if you wanted to insure them. This insuranace value is normally somewhere around double to as much as several times the cost you would have to pay to a dealer to buy them. Then the next lowest "value" for the same covers would be what you would have to pay to a dealer to buy them since every dealer has substantial overhead costs they have to meet as well as make substantial profits to plough back into their business. Then a step down in actual dollar "value" would be the amount you would need to pay for them at auction being sure to add in the percent buyer's premium/shipping cost/transaction fees amounts. You can go on ebay and look at the same covers in auctions where they actually SOLD (ignore starting bids for any auctions that have not actually sold as those are often a great deal higher than what actual sales prices are. Then there the lowest "value" would be the price that you would get from a dealer if you went to a dealer and offered them for sale to him/her. They would give you a wholesale price since they would have to make enough to cover their costs and profits I mentioned above.

And there are overlays on each of the covers in terms of what the stamps are on it - some stamps can increase a "value" somewhat and some can decrease it somewhat. Then there is the need to study all of the cancels and arrival cancels to be sure they are correct for that particular flight. And they all have to be easily readable - not indistinct or illegible. If they are not correct or are unreadable or something is missing the "value" often drops to near nothing. Likewise the cachets - they have to be correct and easily readable. Then you have "on board" cancels that were applied on board the aircraft in flight vs. cancels that were applied at the post office before being loaded onto the aircraft. "On board" cancels add a bit to the "value".

Then there is condition. If there are any stains, tears, repairs, wrinkles, folds, etc. on either the envelope or on the postage stamps they will drop the values - the more serious the faults, the more they will drop the value. If you obtain (either buy or borrow) the catalogs I mentioned you can look up these particular flights and see if they check out completely. There will also be "catalog values" in them which are typically "ideal numbers" and the actual market values are typically lower than the "catalog values. But they do give you a relative value which is important to have. You then can go to ebay and spend some time following auctions of the same or similar covers (using the catalogs to show you which covers have similar values) and again ignore all of the starting bids on the active auctions and only looking at the final sales prices on the SOLD auctions you can get an idea of values.