1928 Chicago 'Motor Truck' Cover

As a collector of transportation cancelled covers, here is a cover which I am very pleased to finally own.

During late 1927 the USPOD added a truck to deliver the mail between the Main Post Office in downtown Chicago and the Chicago Municipal Airport. In keeping with the expedited nature of the airmail service, the USPOD decided that adding processing and cancelling mail in the truck during the trip was advantageous. As a result, a truly unique "Chi & Air Mail Field Motor Truck" postmark was used.

The truck typically made a single 25 minute round trip but sometimes made as many as three or four round trips in a single day. The use of the 'Motor Truck' service was very short-lived, only lasting from October 25, 1927 through July 1, 1928 (when they began using closed pouches and no longer processed mail onboard the truck).

Truck at Chicago air field.

It has now been determined that the majority of these cancels found today are on the Lindberg inaugural CAM-2 covers. CAM-2 air service (both North and South routes) flew between Chicago Illinois and Saint Louis Missouri with interim stops in Peoria and Springfield Illinois. My cover was flown on the special flight over CAM Route 2 from Chicago to Oakland, California via St. Louis, Missouri on February' 21, 1928. . The cover carries the horseshoe-shaped cachet associated with the pilot, Charles A. Lindbergh. The black ink cachet announced "Lindbergh Again Flies the Air Mail" since this flight represented the temporary return of Lindbergh to airmail service for just two days, February 20 and 21, 1928, along the Chicago-Peoria-Springfield-St. Louis route.

As a collector of Highway Post Office covers (I have over 6000 of them), I consider this cover an example of a service which was a forerunner of processing mail in a motor vehicle.
Don

CAM-2 Flight path


AAMS Catalog value of CAM-2 Motor Truck covers

Don

That is really a neat cover and cancel!


Peter

Interesting and enjoyable thread.

So do all the cancels from this motor truck service state "motor truck"?

Source: AAMS Journal Vol 84 No. 11 Nov 2013 article "CHI & Air Motor Field Truck: A Very Scarce Postmark" By Harland Radford

Don

Nice.

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing.

Definitely an interesting story.

Here is a cover I ran across which is new to me); here is a lower resolution scan I did

This is a Charles Lindbergh flown CAM 2 cover (2S7). To honor Lindbergh's past job as an airmail pilot, the Post Office Department authorized him to fly airmail over his old route for two days, February 20 and 21, 1928. He flew north on the 20th and returned from Chicago on the 21st. There was a large volume of mail for this special flight (985+ pounds) so this cover is not rare like the CAM 2 Motor Truck cover shown in the thread above.

But the two things which are new to me is the ½ cent postage due and the penciled note on the reverse regarding the motorcycle messenger.

Does anyone have opinions/insight/feedback on this cover?
Don

Very interesting piece of history, thank you for sharing.

With the exception of the Chicago southbound dispatches that have the Motor Truck cancel, these are very common covers since to many people wanted them. There was so much mail that it could not fit on one aircraft for there were a number of aircraft flown. Lindbergh switched aircraft at each stop so it could be said that he was the pilot for at least a short distance for most of the covers carried on this round trip flight. By the way, the Saint Louis dispatch shown above was not from a load of 985 pounds of mail, but it was from a load of 2,032 pounds sent from Saint Louis. There was additional mail sent north on the group of aircraft that flew this including 73 pounds from Peoria and 112 pounds from Springfield. There are a total of 25 different legs and varieties on this flight and collecting them all would be a fun activity that would not cost very much money. The only one that would be difficult to find is the Chicago Motor Truck variety.

Don's cover is interesting. It bears postage for the 10 cent airmail rate (a half penny short of course), yet the (unfortunately) unsigned note added by the recipient or a later collector would suggest that it got special delivery service rather than handling by the normal carrier. I find it hard to believe, but wonder if the clerks in Williamsport saw the "via Special ..." and were fooled into giving it special delivery service despite the lack of a special delivery fee payment. Or whether a later collector made a guess at how the letter was delivered and due amount collected. It is unfortunate the note is not signed or annotated in a more complete fashion.

I picked up another Chicago Motor Truck cover today. Here are my album pages for the original cover and the new cover.
Don