USA - National Air Mail Week Covers/Cachets - May 15-21 1938

Given the addressee on this cover it may have been a NAMW commercial usage, but more likely it was philatelic as it lacks a return address.  I think that, instead, it was a vanity piece for Wilbert who is standing by his airplane.  The cover is posted on May 19th which was national pick-up day for NAMW mail originating at communities that did not have scheduled airmail service.  Local pilots were recruited to collect and fly mail from these communities to a central drop off place in their respective states for placement on a scheduled airmail route.  Wilbert was probably one of those pilots.  

I collected this cover for the photo of what I believe to be Wilbert's nifty airplane, a Fairchild 24.  The Fairchild 24 came with a variety of seating and engine configurations.  The one pictured looks like the deluxe Model 24K with four seats and a Ranger six cylinder in-line engine.  

SH

Again, this NAMW cover has additional collecting points appealing to me.  Foremost is the dramatic illustration of a Douglas DC-3 climbing to cruise altitude. That was what caused me to purchase this cover and I keep it in my Aircraft on Covers collection.  It also has a variant airmail border consisting of the towns in Du Page County, Illinois.  The posted example below has a not-easy-to-read hand stamp cachet from Wheaton, Illinois.  The addressee was probably a local collector. 

I have often wonder who produced this cover.  Given the inclusion of the towns in the country, it would seem that, perhaps, a county agency ordered the blanks and made them available.  A chamber of commerce, maybe?  Another interesting thing about this cover is that there are twenty-four towns in the county, but this is the only posted cover of this design that I have seen.  I cannot image that this envelope would not have been popular during NAMW.  Seems like there should be others from the other towns in the county.  Does anyone else have an example?

Somewhere I picked up a couple of unused envelopes of this design.  I include an image of one below to better show the design uncluttered with cachets and stamps.  The one shown is addressed to President Roosevelt, but obviously not mailed.  It also has Villa Park Post Office typed under the Du Page County line. Post offices were urged to send examples of their local cached covers to the president, postmaster general, state NAMW chairmen, and other dignitaries.  Perhaps, this cover was intended to meet that obligation.  

All-in-all, an exceptional NAMW cover for what we see and for what we don't know.  If anyone has additional information about this design, I would be most appreciative if you would post it. 

SH 

Multiple collecting points motivated me to buy this cover several years ago.  First, it is an Iowa NAMW cover from Jefferson, Iowa, and I collect Iowa-related covers.  As a small boy, I lived with my parents on a farm about 3 miles north of Jefferson. 

Secondly, it has a remarkable cartoon style cachet.  There many well be some, but I don't remember seeing other NAMW cartoon cachets.  If someone has one, or more, please post as I would like to see them.  This cachet is interesting for another reason.  A former owner penciled a note near the top right hand corner of the cachet that reads "Ding Darling cachet."  Jay "Ding" Darling was the editorial cartoonist for the Des Moines (Ia) Register for many years.  He also was a leading conservationist in the U.S., founder of the National Wildlife Federation, and, most importantly for stamp collectors, the designer and artist of the first duck stamp.  I, however, don't agree with attributing the cachet to Ding Darling.  In the lower left corner of the cachet is the name Carlisle.  That is the signature of Tom Carlisle. Tom Carlisle was from Jefferson, Iowa, also an artist, and was hired by the Register as Darling's assistant.  Besides being a good cartoonist in this own right, Carlisle could emulate Darling's style as I believe he did in this cachet.  The old farmer waving his hat at the airplanes is "Uncle John Iowa," Darling's signature character, but I think Carlisle drew it in this instance.  It is my opinion that Tom Carlisle designed and drew Jefferson, Iowa's NAMW cachet.

Thirdly, is the reference to Jefferson and National Air Mail Pick-up Day.  Indeed, the cover is posted on May 19th, 1938, national pick-up day.  Many small towns participating in NAMW did not even have an airport, let alone being on an airmail route.  So, May 19 was the day for accumulating NAMW mail from smaller towns and transporting it to a designated town with an airport as a pick-up point.  Jefferson apparently had an airport and was a pick-up point for flying accumulated mail to Des Moines, the closest airport on an airmail route.

Fourthly, the cover is addressed to James Mead.  In 1938, Mead was a U.S. Congressman from New York and  chairman of the House Post Office and Post Roads Committee.  He played an active role in the organization of NAMW.  Postmasters were encouraged to send examples of local NAMW cachets to Washington, D.C. dignitaries.  The cover has no return address, but surely it was one of those covers directed to government personalities.

Given the above collecting points, this is one of my more prized covers for both my NAMW and Iowa-related cover collection.

SH

Garden City, NY, chose to reenact the 1911 airmail flight of Earle Ovington to commemorate National Air Mail Week.  The cover's cachet is a real photo of the Bleroit XI  that Ovington used for his flight.  The cover included an insert explaining the 1911 event and included more photos of Ovington and Richard H. Depew Jr, the pilot for the commemorative flight on May 19, 1938.  Depew is standing in front of his airplane, a Fairchild F24.  The text box in the cachet proclaims Garden City as "the cradle of the air mail service," a bold claim,  but chambers of commerce are not known for their modesty.  

SH

Here is a NAMW cover posted on May 19th, national pick-up day, in Morganville, Kansas.  Morganville is a very small town in Clay County, Kansas, about fifty miles northwest of Manhattan, KS, population less than 200 souls in 2010, and probably not much larger in 1938.  I find it surprising that there is a NAMW cover from there.  While it may be an example of the popularity of NAMW and wide participation by many small towns, it is more likely, in this instance, that the sender was a cover collector.  Note the circular hand stamp at the top left.  It is typical of collectors of the 1930s.  I also think that this is a generic cover used for NAMW by the small towns in Clay County, and possibly elsewhere Kansas, as evidenced by the magenta Morganville handstamp, which probably belonged to the sender. The photo cachet is of a Longren No. 1, an airplane built by Albin K. Longren of Topeka, Kansas in 1911.  It is purported to be the first airplane built in the state of Kansas.  A similar model is in the Kansas Historical Society in Topeka.  The cover came with a chatty letter to Esther Davis, perhaps a sister-in-law or cousin, telling of the senders prospect for crops planted and animals he is raising for sale  The cover's reverse has another Morganville postmark dated May 20th which suggests that it missed the May 19th dispatch, or the weather was poor and the the pilot was unable to complete the flight to the collection point.  All in all, an interesting NAMW cover with an airplane cachet that makes it a desirable addition to my Aircraft on Covers Collection. 

Don StampHinger

 

San Pedro, California, & San Pedro Naval Station - May 19th & 21st, 1938

I came across these in my collection of Walter G. Crosby covers. Crosby was a well known cachet maker for first day, naval, and patriotic covers. These covers have dual cachets with the National Air Mail week cachet printed in red and blue lithography and Crosby's "First Flight" addition in thermographed ink, sometimes with a photo attached. Some of these covers were also sponsored by Chicken of the Sea Tuna or the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition.

I don't know if Crosby produced the lithographic portions of the cacheted envelopes or if he just added his own thermographed cachets to existing envelopes. The lithographed cachets show a map of California, a joint pictorial denoting San Pedro harbor as the Home of California Tuna and the Home of the Pacific Fleet, and an invitation to the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco. I have seen versions of the Golden Gate cachet without the NAMW designation.

The envelopes must have been fairly well distributed on the naval base because some covers are found with a sailor's letter home still contained within the envelope.