Any Interest In Western Airletter Material And The Story Behind It?

I have what may be one of the largest collections of this material and wondered if anyone had any interest in this type of material/ story. I've even interviewed the gentleman who founded the company and came up with the idea for these stamps.

If there's any interest, let me know.

Here's a teaser for you. It is a postally used example of this stamp, the first stamp issued by Western Airletter.



If I do start a thread for this, it will be under the Modern U.S. category, just so you know where it will be located.


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

That's a nice teaser link you provided, but doesn't even start to tell the story or show the material for this little known series. The information provided about the total number of issues appears to be basically correct, but can you explain why this occurred?

To the moderators, this should be in the Post 1940 U.S., not covers, as it is both stamps and covers. An alternative, which some would argue, would be the Back of the Book category.

What I don't understand is the san diego postmarkbecause it was then delivered to Santa Barbara area?

sdtom,

The Western Airletter stamp carried the letter from Colorado to San Diego, where it was put into the local system. This generated the San Diego postmark.

The whole idea behind this mail system was to provide faster service than the USPS could at the time by putting them on the first Western Air Lines flight to the destination, or as close as possible (like in this example).

got it

These are interesting but the term "stamp" may be a bit generous. They are privately produced labels that were not issued by the post office. Also, the covers that were serviced are not really mail because their express carriage on the aircraft was as cargo.

The idea for this kind of "outside the mails" express shipping has been around for a long time. It began in 1927 and there have been many airlines and shipping companies who developed this kind of service ever since. The American Air Mail Catalog has a section on the early days that range from 1927 by National Air Transport to 1940 by Pan American Airways. The largest company to provide this kind of service was the Railway Express Agency. The Catalog lists 27 different services between 1927 and 1940 so a basic collection of first flights from each would take 27 covers, though there are varieties within these so a complete collection would require a total of 79 different first flight Air Express covers.

Today these functions are mostly provided by United Parcel Service (UPS) and Federal Express (FedEx).

If anyone would like to collect the early years of these from 1927 to 1940 their listing is found in Volume 1 of the Sixth Edition of the American Air Mail Catalog. Keep in mind, though, that these early ones have fairly substantial catalog values starting at $15 and going as high as $300 for the rarest. A large number are in the range of $35 to $75.

Kimo, I understand where you are coming from, but the Western Air Letter (WAL) project was a different animal from these other express services.

First, they were working with the Postal Service and with the Postal Services approval throughout the two years the project lasted. It was, in many ways, an experiment in delivery methods which exceeded what the USPS had been able to achieve on their own, and on a scale which was beyond what the USPS was able to sustain.

These "labels" were actually listed in the Scott catalog when they first came out as a modern local post issue. For some reason, they were pulled from the catalog - likely because they were not being saved, and it was felt they may not be "postally used."

Did any of the other Express companies in modern times have that type of level of acceptance by the USPS? If so, I'd love to hear about which ones did.

Hi Stampman2002!
The piece moved between two systems, the USPS system and the Western Air Letter third party system.

Is this not similar current FedEx 'Smart Post' and UPS 'Sure Post' arrangement with USPS? Pieces move between the USPS system and FedEx/UPS third party systems. If so, do UPS and FedEx labels then count as stamps to be included in Scott? Yikes!
Don

I would say they should count

Hi Stampman. I understand your point, but Don has already beaten me to the punch accurately pointing out the FedEx Smart Post and UPS Sure Post arrangements. Many of the early efforts that I mentioned were also arranged to graft the express cargo side of the shipping with the official mail side of it as well. There were also labels for a number of the early services such as the Railway Air Express label on one of the covers I showed. These are not Scott listed either.

An interesting part of history.

Carried outside the mail has been around since at least the production of the 3rd Nesbitt stamped envelopes in 1861. The higher face value envelopes were to be used for those items carried outside the mail while protecting the postal service revenues. See the many express mail envelopes where the express companys had their logos, etc. printed onto government produced stamped envelopes. Best known would be Wells Fargo but numerous other companys did the same.

Here is an "out of the mails' use, carried on board the steamer Pt. Arena from San Francisco to Mendocino.

One of the few examples around the world where a postal administration authorized private airlines to print stamps to pay for carriage of mail by air within the mail stream was in Canada between 1924 and 1932. At that time Canada Post was unable to provide airmail service to the many small towns and villages in the most remote parts of the country and the Canadian government passed a law that authorized private airlines to print air mail stamps and require their use on their airlines to carry the mail to those remote places. These were required in addition to the regular surface rate and the proceeds went to the airlines to pay for their carrying of the mail that would not otherwise have been possible. The stamps printed by these companies are listed as semi-official stamps in catalogs of Canadian stamps. These are very different from the labels in most other countries that were made up to carry letters as simple cargo. The Canadian semi-official stamps properly used on covers are a bit pricey for ones properly used with nice readable cancels and markings - anywhere in the $30 to $150 range and sometimes even higher. On the other hand they are a fascinating bit of Canadian postal history and they are not common. Here ia an example of what one looks like - this one has the semi-official stamp on the front while many have their semi-official stamps on their back.