1st Flight San Francisco To Hong Kong To Estonia

When I first came across this cover I thought it was a run of the mill 1st Flight Cover, colorful but nothing unusual until I noticed the address. I have to think a cover going from SF to Hong Kong and then on to Estonia has to be a bit unusual. How would a cover get from Hong Kong to Estonia in 1937? It looks like it took over 3 weeks on this leg of it's journey.

Thats an awesome journey.......!

It may have gotten into the Australia-England route at some point, joining up with Imperial Airways at Hong Kong, as service between London-Hong Kong was started in 1936....

Shouldn't there be other markings on the cover no matter how it traveled?

You would think so but I dont know the process of airmail mail handling in the 30's...especially transfer from one airline to another.
If they had a whole bag of mail would they take time to open the bag, stamp it all and transfer from one plane to another?
Maybe it just went from Hong Kong to Tallinn by ship? That would certainly explain the time involved...

The airmail travel of this cover was the 1937 first flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong by Pan American Airways inaugurating the extension of their previous 1935 trans-Pacific route to Manila to Macao and Hong Kong. the SF - HK covers are listed in the American Armail Catalog as Foreign Contract Air Mail Route 14 (FAM 14), first flight F14-10. There were 31,377 pieces of mail on this leg, and the letter rate was 70 cents per half ounce making it a relatively common first flight cover. After first flights reached the end of their inaugural flights they were normally put into the normal existing surface mail routes to get to wherever they were addressed. There is an extra 15 cents postage on this cover which would not have been enough to pay for further air service to Estonia by other airlines, and postage overpayment on these covers is not rare, especially since some collectors who prepared first flights liked to make them "pretty" with different airmail stamps including adding more than were required. The Estonia receiving cancel shows this cover took almost a month to arrive in Estonia from Hong Kong reinforcing the surface mail route - likely a combination of ship and rail. From most first flight cover collectors' perspectives, where it was forwarded to after the inaugural flight was completed is not of much interest, but I would think that an Estonia collector might find this sort of thing interesting and desirable.

I think you are absolutely correct, see;

https://www.ebay.com/itm/166557115032

I thought it was interesting but not many others agreed.

The winning bid of $6.50 is a full price for an F14-10 first flight cover, likely because of the extra airmail postage stamps making it very colorful. The condition is okay but not great with that 5 cent globe airmail stamp being damaged. It might have brought a slightly higher price had it been marketed as an Estonian item and tried to attract the interest of Estonian collectors as an oddity. But, it is only an ordinary SF - HK first flight to most all cover first flight cover collectors.