A Nice Zeppelin Cover

Had to share this one. May 6, 1937. It was intended for the return trip of the Hindenburg to Germany - zeppelins provided the first regularly scheduled transatlantic airmail service in the US (plane service wouldn't start till 1939).

This was the return trip that never happened - Hindenburg caught fire and crashed about 6 hours after this cover was postmarked while attempting to land at Lakehurst NJ.

Interesting. Any idea of how scarce or common those are?

That is neat - thanks for sharing.

Confused... was this cover on the ground at Lakehurst waiting to be loaded onto the Hindenburg when it landed there for the transatlantic flight?

So how did the cover travel to Germany afterwards? By ship or airplane?

There's no backstamp so it's impossible to tell for certain what happened, but there wasn't any plane service so I expect the only option was surface.

The cover would either have been at Lakehurst waiting to be loaded after landing or on the way there. I think the return departure was scheduled for the next day but haven't confirmed that yet.

The Hindenburg was 13 hours overdue when it arrived at Lakehurst at 7PM. It was scheduled to arrive at 6am the morning of May 6, 1937. Departure time had been slated for 10PM that same night but was pushed back to 12PM due to the weather delay.

It seems unlikely the ship would have been able to do a turn around in less than 5 hours but reports indicate the flight was fully booked and passengers were arriving with luggage and ready to go.



"Commander Knox indicated that the ship apparently left Frankfort, Germany, at 3:16 p.m. on Monday, May 3, and if it had traveled on schedule, it would have landed at 6 a.m. on May 6. The reports from the ship indicated that this would be the landing time, till approximately 5 p.m. May 6,when they radioed that they would land around 6 p.m. The plan was that if the ship landed on May 6, they would take off for the return trip on the same day at l0 p.m., provided the passengers and freight would be loaded in time for such departure, otherwise it would have been later on this night."

Very Nice Cover!!
A lot of history there.

"plane service wouldn't start till 1939" Yes and no. There was a combination of ship plus catapult aircraft service before then. Experiments with a ship carrying a catapult mounted aircraft that would be launched when the ship drew close enough for the plane to make it to land before running out of fuel began in 1926, and then regularly scheduled service of this technique was begun in 1929 and continued through 1935. Two ocean liners were used for the regular service - the Bremen and the Europa. Covers receiving this service have colorful cachets.