AAIIRRPPOOSSTT JJOOUURRNNAALL The Official Publication of the American Air Mail Society December 2016 Volume 87, No. 12 Whole No. 1038 December’s Featured Article — The 1929 CAM 30 Special Christmas Flight Page 491 Zeppelins & Aerophilately Ask for our Free Price List of Worldwide Flight covers and stamps. The following is a small sampling – full list on Website! Happy Holidays! 20% off all Zeppelin Covers and Stamps through January 31, 2017 United States 1926 (June) Government flight 10S with C3, Boston to Ardmore , PA return flight. VF cover . $200 1928 (December 17) C11 on 25th Anniversary First Flight airmail cover signed by Orville Wright . $700 Germany 1929 Netherlands/Silesia flight combo S.41A and S.43A . $1,000 Nicaragua/US 1933 Chicago flight with dual franking Scott C18 S.245B . $1,200 Norway 1936 (October 1) 10th North America Flight cover sent to New York. (S. 441) . $150 Palestine 1933 3rd South America Flight to Argentina. S.219B . $2,000 Peru 1928 (October 22) SCADTA flight cover to Colombia. First flight Peru - Ecuador - Colombia. VF condition. $450 Senegal 1933 6th South America Flight sent to Brazil S.229Aa . $1,850 Somali Coast 1933 8th South America Flight sent to Brazil S.235 . $1,850 Henry Gitner Philatelists, Inc. PO Box 3077T, Middletown NY 10940 Email: [email protected] — http://www.hgitner.com DECEMBER 2016 PAGE 485 In This Issue of the Airpost Journal — ARTICLES — Letters to The 1929 CAM 30 Special Christmas Flight ................................................ 491 Christine and Eugene Sanders the Editor An Unlisted Air France Cachet: Bahia (Brazil) 1934 .................................... 518 Dan Gribbin More on the Pan Am Test Flight FAM 34 First Flight ....................................................................................... 520 In the October 2016 issue of the is a very nice article by Journal Paul Petrosky Tom Reyman on an attractive 1946 Pan Am Test Flight cover mailed in Greater St. Louis Sets World Record ............................................................ 522 1946 from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Quito, Ecuador. I would like to Tom Cottrell thank Tom for sharing this and its background. To add a bit of informa - tion, this was not a test flight in the sense of Pan Am wanting to do a sur - — NEWS — vey flight or to reestablish airmail service after World War II, but rather a New Publications Available .......................................................................... 517 publicity and marketing undertaking by Pan Am to garner increased News of the Shows ........................................................................................ 516 revenue for themselves by convincing more people to use airmail instead Obituary: Capt. Julius Grigore Jr. ................................................................ 524 of surface mail for their international mail. Pan Am held the post office — COLUMNS and FEATURES — contracts to carry the mail between the U.S. and the Central American, An Interesting Cover ..................................................................................... 505 South American and Caribbean countries (FAMs 4 through 10) and so And Now for a Commercial Break ................................................................ 513 any increase in airmail use meant more profits for Pan Am. Canadian Air Mail Notes ............................................................................... 496 The month before the cover pictured with the article was sent - Letters to the Editor ....................................................................................... 487 October, 1946 - the post office reduced the international airmail rates to President’s Message ...................................................................................... 490 these countries to 10 cents. To further encourage the American public to Treasure Hunting for CAM Covers ............................................................... 508 expand their use of airmail to these countries, Pan Am came up with a marketing idea. They advertised in the newspapers for individuals — DEPARTMENTS – around the country to undertake their own individual and personal test APJ Ads ......................................................................................................... 528 of how much faster airmail was to these countries than surface mail. Pan Membership Report ....................................................................................... 525 Am made an arrangement with the post office: any letter mailed from any town in the U.S. that was postmarked on November 1, 1946, addressed to "Pan American Airways System, Airmail Test" in any capi - Editor and Advertising tal city of the 28 countries served by Pan Am in Central America, South Vickie Canfield Peters 11911 E Connor Road Valleyford WA 99036 vcanfi[email protected] America and the Caribbean would be gathered and carried by Pan Am Staff Writers and Columnists on their regular airmail-carrying services to that country and delivered Joe Kirker Alan Warren to the local Pan Am office there. Chris Hargreaves Bob Wilcsek Lee Downer That local office would backstamp every cover they received Copyright 2016 The American Air Mail Society . The Airpost Journal (ISSN 0739-0939) is pub - under this promotion and then, at no cost to the sender, affix an appro - lished monthly by the American Air Mail Society, 11911 E. Connor Road, Valleyford WA 99036. Periodical postage paid at Spokane WA 99201 and additional post offices. Postmaster: Send priate postage stamp of that country, cross out the Pan Am address, address changes to American Air Mail Society, 7 First St., Westfield NY 14787. Domestic sub - mark it “return to sender” and put it in the mail. That way, every sender scription rate $30 per year; $5 per copy. Opinions expressed in features and columns in this publication are solely those of the authors and could see the date they mailed it, November 1, 1946, and the date it was do not necessarily represent those of the society. Running an ad does not endorse the advertiser. backstamped in the country to which it was sent. Each person's little per - PAGE 486 AIRPOST JOURNAL DECEMBER 2016 PAGE 487 sonal experiment would let them see for themselves how fast airmail was " . Her obsession with weight may have been taken to extreme length, and now how inexpensive it was compared to the previous rates. for according to Harry Balfour, radio operator at Lae, survival equip - These are fun covers to collect, though I am not sure anyone ment was also taken off. Balfour claimed that "she unloaded all her sur - could ever create a collection of every town from which they were plus equipment on me including her [Very] pistol and ammunition, mailed since they could have been mailed from any city or town in the books, letters and facility books.” U.S. It is a challenge enough to collect one to each of the 28 destination If she was carrying approximately 6,500 covers, and assuming countries and even more of a challenge to collect one of each from a there were about 60 covers to a pound, they would have weighed about given U.S. city or town. Usually the bigger cities would have had many 108 pounds, which would have been a significant amount of weight. If more people sending these and so may be a bit easier to assemble a col - the covers were unloaded at Lae, Papua New Guinea, then the question lection of all 28 destination countries from one of the bigger cities. is, what happened to them? You might even be lucky enough to chance upon a complete set Ken Sanford of the 28 countries that were prepared and mailed by the same person on * * * some clean and matching covers but such complete sets can be hard to Just a Cover find. More often singles, such as the one illustrated in Mr. Reyman's arti - In the article “Defining Postal History” ( , Nov. 2016, pp. 467- APJ cle, are found, or sometimes partial sets of fewer than the 28 can be 8), Jim Graue gives a valid definition of a postal history exhibit, but miss - encountered. I think the reason complete sets can be a challenge to find is es an important point in the further discussion. Too many people equate that there are non-airmail collectors who collect individual countries and a cover with postal history, where they may say “I collect postal history,” “cherry pick” one or two covers from a set for their particular country meaning “I collect covers.” Unfortunately, that is not correct. What is collection. Complete sets would be less numerous since preparing and essential is the way the cover is used in an exhibit. Outside the exhibit sending 28 letters to all of these countries may have been an effort not it’s, well, just a cover. everyone wanted to try other than some collectors or dealers back then. What do I mean by that? Take for example a cover that has U.S. Jim Hester AAMS #6938 postage, carried on a first flight, signed by Lindbergh and with postage * * * due when forwarded at destination. It could be part of a “traditional” In the October 2016, issue of the , there is an arti - exhibit that concentrates on the U.S. stamps involved. It could be part of Airpost Journal cle on Pam Am test flights. As I recall, there have been a couple of similar a “thematic” exhibit of Lindberghiana. It could be a part of an exhibit articles run in the past. These covers have all been postmarked on that deals with forwarded mail and postage due, which could be a differ - November 1, 1946. This was the first day of the unified worldwide air ent form of postal history. And, yes, it could be a part of an