Gallery

 

What is left?
More than sixty years passed since the last zeppelin mail was sent through the Polish post in the Freie Stadt Danzig. These flights and the Free City are only memories of a time in which we often like to remenice. Today, tremendous quantities of mail are being sent to South America by airplanes, compared to the tiny amounts sent by the Graf Zeppelin in the 1930s. From all of the zeppelin mail, only 228 letters were sent through the Polish post in Danzig. This small number already made these covers quite rare in those days. But what is left now, sixty years later? This writer attempted to comp ose a list of the covers that still exist, based on auction catalogs, literature and information from several collectors. Below is the result so far:

TABLE 2: Existing zeppelin covers known in 1994.


Almost all of the zeppelin covers can be identified very easily. The mail was sent registered and therefore each cover has a unique registration cancel.

The Zeppelin Covers


Almost all zeppelin mail, sent through the Polish post in Danzig, was sent by Mr. Alfons Pilarzy, a zeppelin mail collector from Paruszowice, in Poland. He sent his mail to Stolz & Co. in Pernambuco in Brazil, a well-known address for zeppelin mail.

Three different labels were used on the covers:
1) The normal blue Polish PAR AVION LOTNICZA labels.
2) A brown label MIT LUFTSCHIFF GRAF ZEPPELIN, according to the rules, or a blue label PAR GRAF ZEPPEUN.
3) On the covers sent by Pilarzy, there was also a special yellow-brown label with the inscription Tylko z sterowcem HRABIA ZEPPELIN w ka3dym wypadku odprnwic przez U.P Warsznwa 2 do h.P. Berlin C 2: (In any event by dirigible Graf Zeppelin sending through post office Warsaw 2 to post office Berlin C 2.) 11 is not clear whether this label was an official label of the Polish post office or a private label. So far, this label is known only from zeppelin mail that was sent by Pilarzy, both from Danzig and from Poland.
4) For the triangle flight of 1933, an additional label was used, indicating the destination.

 

Danzig Report Vol. 1 - Nr. 85 - October - November - December - 1994, Page 7.