This post features a zeppelin cover with Bach, Handel, and Schütz stamps in my collection. For those interested in philately and postal history, zeppelin mail has a particular interest. There are many who study this area of the hobby and are experts in the subject. For those who may want to learn more about this history check out this website or checkout the active zeppelin facebook group.
As you know, my collection features music themed material. While my primary collection is stamps (and some first day covers), I also have a special love for other postal history items when I can find a music connection. For a long time, I was on the look out for a zeppelin cover that would fit into my collection.
One of the difficulties for my collecting such a piece is that there were few postage stamps featuring musical themes during the prime period of zeppelin mail service between 1919 and 1939. Foremost among these are some post horn stamps. However, there are also a handful of colonial stamps featuring musicians from this period. There are also some composer stamps from both Austria and Germany, and a few other miscellaneous pieces. Yet, that is a very slim selection of music stamps.
So I was very excited when I was able to acquire this cover that includes multiples of all three composer stamps in a set from Germany made in 1935. It also clearly has cancellations from a zeppelin ship. The piece is a postcard with a completely blank back. Without a note or letter, the piece is a philatelic cover, meaning made for collectors. While such pieces often have less interest to collectors, I fell in love with this cover the first time I saw it. I can only imagine that it was a music-loving stamp collector who went to the trouble to make this. In some ways, it feels like they made it in 1935 just so I could find it and own it eighty years later.
The Postcard
Let’s start with the postcard. The only really noticeable feature of the card is that it has a preprinted stamp of Paul von Hindenburg in the upper right corner. Other than that, it is fairly nondescript, there are some lines where an address could be written. The back is completely blank.
I have been able to identify a similar postcard from 1930s Germany. Here is an image of the blank postcard on the left and the zeppelin piece on the right. Notice the preprinted postage in the upper right corner and the lines on the right. There is even a similar thick black border around both. Surely, this type of card was readily available for purchase for the person who made the attractive composer stamp piece.
The Stamps
(not stamps from the cover)
The cover has twelve stamps. This includes the 1935 composer set made in honor of the birth anniversaries of Henrich Schütz (1585), George Frederick Handel (1685) and Johann Sebastian Bach (1685). You can learn more information as well as my thoughts about this set here. The stamps were released on June 21, 1935 at the Leipzig Bach fair, and this cover was sent about five weeks later on July 30. There is also the preprinted postage in the upper right corner, a 6 pfennig stamp featuring Paul von Hindenburg, president of Germany until his death in 1935. Together, these stamps have a denomination value of 140 reichspfenning, or 1 Mark, 40 pfennings.
The Cancellations
There are three different postal frankings. The most important to determining the information about the zeppelin ship is the postmark that is used to cancel all of the stamps. You can see a larger version of it above. In the outer circle it says: Deutsche Luftpostenstamp (Germany airmail stamp) and at the bottom: Europa-SudAmerika. In the center, it reads: Luftschiff Graff Zeppelin (revealing the ship) with the date “30.7.35 (July 30, 1935). Finally, it says 9. Fahrt, indicating this was the 9th journey between Germany and Brazil that year. The cancellation reveals that the piece was cancelled on board the zeppelin, which had its own post office, making this a piece of “bordpost” or on-board mail. Very cool.
There is also a wonderful decorative postmark in red that features a fancy cancel of a zeppelin ship and an airplane within a circle and the words Deutsche Luftpost and Europa SudAmerika again. Finally, one other cancellation reveals that the piece was received in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil on August 1, 1935.
The Flight
To understand what these marks mean, I am tremendously grateful for the assistance of Gary Loew. He saw my twitter post about acquiring the piece last year and shared the following information. The Graf Zepellin flight number for the trip was G463, which left Friedrichshafen, Germany on July 29th at 22:34 hours and arrived in Recife Pernambuco on August 1st. The date on the postmark is July 30th, while the zeppelin was en route.
Kurt Schönherr
The addressee of the postcard was Herrn Kurt Schönherr. He was a longtime member of zeppelin crews dating back to 1913. He began flying on the commercial LZ-127 Graf zeppelins in 1927. Schönherr was on every one of the Graf flights until transferring to the Hindenburg in 1936. According to this article by Cheryl Ganz, he was also the onboard postmaster.
Most interestingly, Schönherr was the senior helmsman aboard the Hindenburg on May 6th, 1937, and was at the rudder wheel when the ship came in to land at Lakehurst, New Jersey. After the explosion and crash landing, he was able to escape the ship. You can learn more about his career and experience in the Hindenburg disaster here.
