The following questions came up in one of our German neighbor forums in connection with a planned book presentation (not mine!):
Imagine a letter sent from San Francisco on 3 March 1934 to Munich in Germany. Would it be realistic to assume that a delivery attempt would have been made on 14 or 15 March of the same year? Could this have been done by railroad in the USA, steamer across the Atlantic, and railway in Germany? Or was there already a regular air mail service? If yes, would there be air mail markings, and which ones? How much would the postage have been?
re: Postage rates and transit times overseas in the 1930s
Hi,
in 1934, there were couple of ways to handle this.
the authorities on this are Tony W and Harry Beecher. I'm taking my answers from their book, and you may want to look at it before publishing anything. It's getting late, and I may have transcribed something wrong.
You could prepay airmail in the US and surface to Germany at 10c. Beginning in 32, there was also a 3c airmail surcharge you could choose to add from France to Germany.
There were also Zeppelin flights at completely different rates, but those covers should be recognizably different.
You would likely see an airmail field transit CDS on part of its US leg.
Beginning in 39, clippers began their routes.
Hope that helps. I don't know times at all.
David
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re: Postage rates and transit times overseas in the 1930s
Thanks for your response. The detail about the transit postmark is a valuable bit of information.
As for the postage, do 10c cover the complete postage in case the letter went by air mail in the US and by surface mail the rest of the way, or do I need to add something for the basic postage rate?
re: Postage rates and transit times overseas in the 1930s
Google translate at work from original URL....reads fairly well.
United States letter 1934
I need your expert help.
For a scenic reading of the book Addressee Unknown , I would like to reconstruct an imaginary letter from San Francisco to Munich (date: March 03, 1934) (see illustration), but I lack the expertise to implement it.
My questions:
1. Can one recognize from the time span (March 03, 1934 San Francisco - March 18, 1934 Munich) whether this letter has been sent by airmail? Would not an AirMail stamp be added then?
2. Which stamp could theoretically have been on this cover? How many cents has this cost?
3. Was there the stamp "Receiver Unknown" and is there evidence of it?
re: Postage rates and transit times overseas in the 1930s
before he publishes his book, he MUST look at B&W's US international rate book. There are also several highly useful airmail books out there that go into more depth about the development of routes, who flew them, etc.
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"Save the USPS, buy stamps; save the hobby, use commemoratives"