history

It’s the time of year for Christmas Seals, those little pieces of paper resembling postage stamps but used as a fundraiser for the American Lung Association.  The use of charity stamps has been around almost as long as postage itself, giving a charity the opportunity to raise funds while offering supporters a way to show off their dedication with every letter they send.  In history, however, charitable giving hasn’t been the only reason to add non-postage stamps to letters; there’s a strong history of using labels in protest.

Between 1902 and 1905, Arthur Griffith founded Sinn Fein, a group protesting England’s control over Ireland and desiring a parallel dual monarchy between the two countries.   The failure of the United Irishman newspaper in 1906 left a void which Griffith filled, titling his paper Sinn Fein, initially publishing as a weekly but with the intention to grow into a daily paper.  In January 1908, Griffith announced his plan for financing the daily Sinn Fein:  for a penny, supporters could buy a block of four “Celtic Cross” labels or an allegory of Eire.   Griffith asked his supporters to add the Sinn Fein stamps to the front of letters, in addition to the regular British postage, as a sign of their political views.  Although Griffith suggested the Celtic Cross stamp be placed opposite the regular postage’s position, his supporters sometimes placed them alongside the regular postage, and the practice grew to such a degree that the Post Office had to step in.  The Postmaster General released a statement that only official postage may appear on the front of an envelope; any mail with non-postage stamps on the front would be returned to sender.  Stamps on the back, however, would continue to be handled by the post office, so Griffith’s protest stamps continued to make it through the mail.   The Sinn Fein even did become a daily newspaper for a short while, but the Celtic Cross stamps were discontinued after about a year.   After the Easter Uprising in 1916, however, an unknown party printed up a number of the Celtic Cross stamps and distributed them among the now more millitant Sinn Fein, and these protest stamps appeared on postage again for a short time.

The Sinn Fein Celtic Cross wasn’t the first protest stamp.   These so-called “cinderella stamps”, or non-postage stamplike labels, existed in small numbers before the Sinn Fein’s successful stamp was released.   One particularly notable protest stamp came about in opposition to Queen Victoria’s reign.   The Jacobite movement declared that the Habsburg lineage was the true line to the British throne, which had been – by their reckoning -  usurped by William and Mary in 1688.  Uprisings and rebellions occurred throughout the 18th century, but into the 19th century the Jacobite movement had lost steam and their banner was raised as a matter of pride moreso than outright rebellion.  In April 1893, unknown Jacobite supporters in England released their own postage stamp in support of she whom they believed to be the true sovereign of the country, Marie Therese von Habsburg, otherwise known as “Mary IV and III.”  Jacobite supporters were to place the Mary IV and III stamp in the place of the regular postage; the proper postage stamp, depicting Queen Victoria, was to be placed below the Jacobite stamp and affixed upside-down to show her ‘rightful’ position.   The stamps were sold a hundred at a time for 3s., a hefty amount of money at the time, and while they had gained a degree of notariety during the final years of the 19th century, they were not widespread, and are exceedingly rare today.

The process has continued into modern times, and isn’t restricted to nations in civil turmoil.   In early 1990s, the US Postal Service issued a series of stamps each year commemorating the 50th anniversary of various WWII events, from Pearl Harbor stamps in 1991, until 1995 when they planned to release stamps commemorating the end of the war.  In that final set of stamps, the USPS had included a stamp with a bright red mushroom cloud, commemorating the US’ development of nuclear weapons.   Citizens in both the US and Japan felt the stamp was in poor taste, given the civilian toll of the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and that nuclear disarmament was an ongoing debate.   The USPS relented and replaced the A-Bomb stamp with one depicting Truman announcing the end of the war.   Others, largely WWII veterans and others unwilling to take the apologist role, felt the replacement was unwarranted, and printed up their own stamps depicting an atomic mushroom cloud.   Several variations were released and were sold to supporters of the original stamp to put on their letters in addition to the regular postage.

As exonumia is to coin collecting, the field of cinderella stamps is broad and uncharted.  Although it might feel like you’re limited to cute depictions of Santa in various situations, be aware that there’s much more to be found in non-postage labels, from Irish independence to wronged kings to how history is interpreted through a modern lens, a range nearly as political and historical as postage stamps themselves.

The Graf Zeppelin was the greatest of the lighter-than-aircraft of the twenties and thirties.   This dirigible first flew in September 1928, and wasted little time in setting records.  One month later, the Graf Zeppelin made the first trans-Atlantic flight to carry paying passengers from Europe to the United States.  The next year, 1929, the Graf Zeppelin set out to circumnavigate the world.   Financed by a variety of backers, including William Randolph Hearst, the airship made an uneventful trip around the world, completing the loop in little more than three weeks.   Later, the Graf Zeppelin would also fly over the North Pole.  In all the airship clocked over a million miles in 590 flights, and only ended its service after a series of dirigible tragedies soured the public’s idea of lighter-than-air flight.   No deaths resulted from the operation of the  Graf Zeppelin,  nor did it ever crash, and only once was it seriously delayed due to damage.

The one issue the Graf Zeppelin struggled with was funding its flights.   The high-profile circumnavigation of the world had the benefit of Hearst’s deep pockets, but less than a month after the successful completion of the around-the-world trip, Black Tuesday hit, the Great Depression began to build up steam, and less newsworthy trips — nobody sends reporters to cover the twelfth trans-Atlantic flight — the huge dirigible needed to find a way to fund its trips.

Hugo Eckener, captain of the Graf Zeppelin, knew how to make ends meet: “How could we finance this flight?” he asked rhetorically, “Not an easy problem to solve. We could carry about 200 kg mail. I put my hope in the philatelists, who had contributed so much to the round-the-world flight…”   Stamp collecting had begun to spread during the 1920s,  and the shrinking of the world via international travel, now thanks moreso to aircraft, made more distant stamps available across the planet.   Rarity was also a better-documented status for postage stamps, making speculation possible; collectors were beginning to buy stamps at the time of issue for the purpose of storing them in mint condition as an investment.

At first, mail traveling by dirigible didn’t receive any special treatment, but the postal service soon realized that there was an interest in identifying mail that had been transported by air.   Custom franking for airship delivery created a unique identifier for collectors to pursue; this so-called “zeppelin mail” didn’t start with the Graf Zeppelin, but by the time the Graf Zeppelin began zipping around the world, they could not ignore the financial benefit of carrying the mail: the postage revenues were adding up to a significant part of a flight’s budget.   Mail which rode on the airship for the ‘around the world’ flight got a custom cancellation to prove its attendance: the stamp for the flight cost $3.55 — equal to over $40 in today’s dollars.

In order to accommodate this high price for airmail delivery, without covering the front of the letter with stamps smaller increments, postal services created special airmail stamps with higher denominations, and even for specific dirigible flights.   The most famous and rare of these U.S. stamps are the Europe Pan-America flight of the Graf Zeppelin.   Issued in three different values – 65¢, $1.30, and $2.60 – the stamps were created specifically to be used for mail going to any stop between the US, South America, and Europe on the Graf Zeppelin.  These stamps were first made available on 19 April 1930 and continued to be sold until June 30th, after the flight had already been made.   After June 30th, without any practical use for the stamps, the Postal Service destroyed all remaining postage.   With the Great Depression becoming more entrenched, the  face value of these stamps was too rich for most collectors.  Combioned with the short purchasing window, very few of these stamps survived in mint condition and are quite valuable today.

The Graf Zeppelin saw one more custom U.S. postage stamp, at the time of the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, although it was nearly nixed.   The proposed stamp would specifically reference the Century of Progress, the World’s Fair’s title, and 42½¢ of the 50¢ postage would fund the Graf Zeppelin’s flight.   The Fair had already been given commemorative 1¢ and 3¢ postage stamps, and President Roosevelt felt the third stamp was unnecessary.   Roosevelt was warned by both his advisors and the German attache that refusal to create the stamp and fund the Graf Zeppelin’s visit could result in an international incident.  Hitler had taken power the year before,  tensions were already high over his unpopularity in the international scene, and a snubbing of the German flagship of modern transportation would not be taken lightly.    The U.S. relented, allowing the Graf Zeppelin stamp to go to press — but without the Nazi swastika on its fins.

During its decade of flight, the Graf Zeppelin produced enough variations to fill a dedicated collection devoted only to dirigible-related postage.   ‘Zeppelin mail’ comes in innumerable forms and is still widely available today, often with franking from each stop the mail made on its route, and each nearly all unique to the flight made.    The U.S. wasn’t the only country to mint special stamps to fund zeppelin postal service, and during the late 1920s and 1930s countries at many points on the airship routes produced commemorative stamps, and not just for the Graf Zeppelin.  In particular the zeppelin mail, collectors have preserved the postage of this lighter-than-air form of mail delivery , recognizing at the time the potential rarity of the mail, and their desire for the unique stamps and franking helped fund the zeppelin’s trips by increasing the volume of mail carried by the airships.    This symbiotic relationship didn’t help the dirigibles survive long after the Hindenburg disaster, but philately has benefited from the unique and special ways that the Graf Zeppelin, and other airships, changed how mail was delivered during the 1920s and 1930s.

First put into operation in 1835, the U.S. Mint in New Orleans was a key player in the United States’ financial security.   The port of New Orleans, at the mouth of the Mississippi at the Gulf of Mexico, was a powerhouse in domestic and international commerce.  Foreign silver and gold came in, U.S. silver and gold went out, and as such waiting for precious metals to get to a larger mint like Philadelphia was out of the question: the New Orleans mint produced U.S. coins in both silver and gold, assaying foreign monies received and re-minting that foreign gold and silver into new U.S. money.  As the San Francisco mint was just getting started, gold from the California Gold Rush made it to New Orleans and was coined.

It’s no wonder that, upon seceding from the Union in 1861, Louisiana took control of the New Orleans Mint and laid claim to the bouillon in the vaults.  This boon wasn’t squandered by the CSA: the state of Louisiana continued to operate the Mint, producing over 960,000 silver half-dollars and over 17,000 $20 gold double-eagles, or nearly a million dollars in coin, for the Confederate States using the existing Federal  coin dies.   Because these coins were in every sense identical to the Union coins, the Confederacy was able to spend them without risk of them being refused, but this similarity sadly means modern numismatists are also unable to identify coins minted by the CSA.

The Confederate States of America were eager to establish themselves as an independent nation, and one practical way was to begin minting CSA specie currency.   The New Orleans Mint was, of course, the ideal venue for such an undertaking: other southern mints were less capable, and were already mostly drained of their precious metals.   In early April 1861, Secretary of the Confederate Mint Christopher Memminger ordered a new design for a Confederate Half-Dollar, a 50¢ silver coin specifically minted for the Confederate States.  Several designs were submitted, and one was chosen with an reverse depicting a shield with seven stars, one for each of the initial Confederate states, surrounded by stalks of sugarcane and cotton.  The front, whether for recognizability or simplicity, would use the same obverse dies as the Union half-dollar.   Four proofs in silver were minted and examined as samples of the potential coinage of the CSA; one went to Confederate president Jefferson Davis, two went to local dignitaries, and one was retained by Chief Coiner Benjamin Taylor.

The New Orleans Mint, however, was shut down on 30 April 1861 due to an increasing scarcity in precious metals due to the war.  The Mint had exhausted its existing stores of bouillon minting coins using the Union designs, and the CSA’s attention had been diverted to more pressing concerns than a new coin.  The Mint was used for military purposes, the Mint employees relieved of their duties, and those four half-dollars were forgotten.

The Civil War ended, the New Orleans Mint was put back into service in 1879 specifically for minting new silver coins, and – of course – these unusual CSA half-dollars were discovered by coin collectors.  Chief Coiner Taylor was the main resource for the discovery of the coins, since he still owned his proof along with the original reverse die used to create the coins.  Two others surfaced not long after, and a few years later the fourth was discovered as a circulating coin, having been used to purchase something in New York state quite some time after the end of the Civil War.

Taylor sold his coin and die in 1879, and that purchases re-sold the obverse die to coin dealer J. Walter Scott and Company.   Scott’s plan for the die, with assistance of renowned numismatist David Proskey, was  simple.   He obtained 500 regular 1861 silver half-dollars, which had the identical front as the Confederate coin, and re-struck the coins with the Confederate reverse.   The first few were re-struck directly over the existing Federal back, which resulted in a bit of a double-exposure, the existing reverse faintly visible underneath the Confederate reverse.   Plan B was to remove the reverse from the coins, which made them slightly lighter than an original silver half-dollar, and then striking the Confederate reverse on the now-blank back.   This gives both styles of Scott’s restrikes a slightly different way to tell them apart from an actual Confederate half-dollar: the non-scraped coins weigh the same but have the ghosting of the original Union reverse, while the smoothed reverse ones weigh slightly less – and in both cases, the re-strike caused some flattening of the obverse image.

Scott also struck 500 in a white metal, with an 'advertisement' obverse. These are equally rare as the silver restrikes.

Scott obtained his 500 1861 coins from collectors, and as such most were fine specimens to begin with, but had varying degrees of wear and oxidation which affected how the coin looked after the re-striking.  Scott, being a coin dealer, was no fool:  he kept his re-strike project as a very limited run, which increased the value of the coins despite not being originals, and when he was done Scott had the die defaced to prevent any new coins being produced.  These Scott’s Re-Strikes are worth thousands of dollars today on the collectible market on their own merits.

Unlike other rare oddball coins, the Confederate Half-Dollar is remarkably well-documented, and it is surprising that all of the original proofs are accounted for, as well as the original dies used to make the coins.   The die and one of the four original proofs resides in the collection of the American Numismatic Society, while the other three are in private collections; surprisingly, none are in the Smithsonian’s extensive numismatic collection.  The rarity of the originals shouldn’t discourage collectors, provided you have deep pockets: the Scott Restrikes are common enough that they appear at auction somewhat regularly, giving numismatists the opportunity to own one of the few examples of the coinage of the CSA.

The mid-19th century was a tough time for Ireland.  Relations with England were deteriorating, famines and a growing population created torturous living conditions,  and the United States of America – a rapidly destabilizing young nation on the verge of civil war – looked, comparatively, like a nice place to move your family to.   These were, of course, the prime conditions to disenfranchise, mobilize, and encourage radicalism.   Ireland wanted its freedom from England, but small skirmishes, the rumblings of a full-fledged rebellion, were quickly quashed and the rabble-rousers arrested.

The Irish Republican Brotherhood was the biggest successful attempt, at the time, of a large-scale organized revolution, but fear of prosecution spread the rebellion’s leaders around Europe.   A handful ended up in the United States and found a wealth of support in the Irish expatriates on the East Coast.  Taking the name of a mythical king in Celtic literature, Irish Republican John O’Mahony called the American offshoot of the IRB the Fenian Brotherhood.

O’Mahony was no fool – he recognized that any rebellion needed to be financed somehow.  The United States was still a wealthier nation than Ireland was at the time, so O’Mahony found great support in selling “war bonds” to fund the activities of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.   Supporters in the United States would buy one of these bonds, commonly in a $5, $10, or $20 increments (when, at the time, even $5 was a sizeable chunk of money), on promise of receiving repayment, plus interest, six months after the date Irish freedom was finally achieved.   O’Mahony then forwarded the money to their compatriots in Ireland, funding their insurgency.  Some funds were kept in the United States, offering a ’skirmishing budget’ for the local Fenian Raiders, whose objective became to take over Canada and hold it for ransom, in exchange for Ireland’s freedom.    Fenian bonds also bankrolled one of the earliest attempts to build a functioning combat submarine.  If one thing can be said about the Fenians, it’s that they heartily embraced lofty goals.

Thousands of these bonds were sold by O’Mahoney and his stateside supporters, but they are relatively rare today.   This is partly because of age, but also – inconcievably – many were actually redeemed for their value.  After the Irish Civil War, one of the factions, led by Republican Eamon De Valera, recalled many of the bonds to be redeemed; some of the money, held by banks in New York, was decided by the Supreme Court to be repaid to bondholders directly, rather than turning the funds  over to either Irish faction.  Time passed, Ireland continued to change and grow into its new statehood, and the remaining unredeemed bonds became void.

Those unredeemed bonds are still available to scripophily collectors, but they demand a premium price: at a 2006 auction, two Fenian Bonds were sold, one for over $1100, the other for over $800.  Despite their rarity, they have appeared even on sites like eBay, but demanding an expectedly high price; auction houses are likely the best venue to obtain one of these bonds, as they are best fitted to evaluate the bond’s value.   The historical nature of these bonds have produced a market for reproductions of the Fenian Bonds, so collectors should be very careful.   As always, be aware that these are rare, museum-worthy collectibles, and a too-good-to-be-true deal most certainly needs a second look.   Whether it paid for freedom, Canadian invasions, or an early submarine, the value of these bonds has far exceeded their original face value, much of it made up by the oddball and influential history behind their original issuance.

I love it when some small, seemingly innocuous, object I’ve collected reminds me that it’s not just “mine,” that it belongs to a much larger story. Sometimes I know that Big Picture story, other times I don’t; here’s a case that illustrates the latter.

TWA Convair 880 In-Flight Card

Recently, Rollie Puterbaugh contacted me, through the Collectors’ Quest Community, about adding scans of one of my travel and tourism ephemera items to his website. The specific item he was interested in was the laminated in-flight instruction card for TWA’s Convair 880 jet and he wanted to add the image to his project, the Flight 383 & 128 Memorial Project.

I’d never made the connection between that plastic-covered in-flight card and the tragic crash, but once I did, I was only too happy to have “my” card become part of those stories — especially as the stories are not only historical research and collection of artifacts, but the stories of the people involved in the tragic events, and the project works to create a physical memorial. So I asked Rollie to share some more information about the project and his involvement.

Tell us how you became involved in the memorial project.

In 2005, I gathered my previous research about the accident and began the process of locating the property and property owner where the Boeing 727 had hit the hillside. After “finding” and then gaining access to the property in 2005, I hiked up to the site of the November 8, 1965 crash site of AA Flight 383.

AA Flight 383, November 8, 1965 (Photo Courtesty of Kenton County Kentucky Public Library)

After posting the information on the internet, I was stunned by the inquiries I would receive in the following years from family members of victims and witnesses. I realized that the accident was not well documented because of the number of hits and comments I was receiving on the FOTKI site.

In January 2009, I decided to expand my research and scope on the story of Flight 383. The angle I decided on was the life changing effect this event had on hundreds of people; victims, families, witnesses, and first responders, so I began documenting and gathering data on all these groups. Somehow I gained credibility in Hebron, Kentucky where these accidents occurred and the next thing I knew, I was involved in writing the story of two disasters and attempting to place two memorials in the area to honor the participants of both Flights AA 383 and TWA 128.

TWA Flight 128, November 20, 1967 (Photo Courtesty of Kenton County Kentucky Public Library)

Today, I am active with the Flight 383/128 Memorial Group of Hebron, Kentucky in historic research and the pursuit of a memorial to honor all those who were impacted by the Cincinnati aviation events of the 1960’s.

Mark Free, Harvey Pelley, and Linda Holbrook, Members of the Flight 383/128 Memorial Project

Please understand that at this point the project is a gigantic team effort from people all over the country, including Mark Free (Witness TWA Flight 128), Harvey Pelley (First Responder Flights 383/128), and Linda Holbrook (Telephone operator the night of November 20,1967), who are contributing their stories, images, or time to the effort. It is no longer a one man project…

The members of Flight 383/128 Memorial Group do not want future generations to see just statistics about these calamities and forget the people and events that played out in the “Hills of Hebron” on the nights of November 8,1965 and November 20, 1967. All of them had “stories” that were lost on those fateful Monday nights.

Bruce Hart, Decca Records Employee, Victim of AA Flight 383, Photo Courtesy of Dorian Hart-Cochrane

Are there other parts of the story the group is looking for?

People can help simply by contacting us if they had relatives onboard these flights or have any other information about the disasters, including, as in your case, owning items directly related to American Airlines or TWA in the 1960’s {specifically the Boeing 727 and Convair 880 aircraft}.

I am looking for a TWA Sytem TimeTable for the Fall of 1967 and an American Airlines System TimeTable for the Fall of 1965. I am also looking for a Kentucky roadmap from the 1960’s. I am interested in posting the covers and the pages showing the Flight schedule for the flights involved in the air disasters in the Cincinnati area during this period. I would also be interested in purchasing these items if someone was interested in selling them.

If you have personal stories, information and/or items you think Rollie and the Flight 383 & 128 Memorial Project might be interested in, you can message him via his profile in the Collectors’ Quest Community or email him at rollie13@msn.com.

If you’re interesting in the memorial project, you can keep up via the group’s newsletters — and you can support the group with donations. Contributions for a memorial in Hebron, Kentucky to American Airlines Flight 383 and TWA Flight 128 can be made by visiting any local branch of the Bank of Kentucky or by mailing a check made payable to “Flight 383/128 Memorial Project” and mailed to:

The Bank of Kentucky, Inc.
Attention: Joy Wilson
1065 Burlington Pike
Florence Ky 41042

Joy’s phone number is: 859-372-5176.