Luftschiffbau Zeppelin G.m.b.H. Airmail Information

In Connection with the Voyage of the Airship “Graf Zeppelin” from Germany via Brazil to “A Century of Progress” Exposition in Chicago…and return to Europe
New York, Luftschiffbau Zeppelin G.m.b.H., [1933].

Printed broadside, framed & glazed.

A printed broadside issued in New York by Luftschiffbau Zeppelin for the 1933 flight of the airship Graf Zeppelin (LZ 127) from Germany, via Brazil, to the “A Century of Progress” Exposition in Chicago and back to Europe. It sets out the planned schedule: departure from Friedrichshafen on 14 October, by way of Pernambuco and Rio de Janeiro to Miami and Akron, a 20–24-hour flight to Chicago and back, then return via Seville to Friedrichshafen on 31 October. It also gives detailed postal rates and instructions for collectors wishing to send mail by the airship, using German, Brazilian or United States stamps. It announces the special United States 50-cent airmail stamp issued for the visit, noting that “only a limited amount of these stamps will be printed and the plates subsequently destroyed”. This is the stamp now known to collectors as the “Baby Zepp” (Scott C18), issued on 2 October 1933.

The Graf Zeppelin reached the Chicago fair on 26 October 1933, circled it for some two hours, and made a brief landing. This was the fifth and last of the airship’s visits to the United States. By 1933 the Nazis had come to power, and the airship carried swastika markings on the left side of its fins; its commander, Hugo Eckener, circled the fair clockwise so that spectators would not see them. The flight came during the airship’s regular South American service: it had made 64 round trips to Brazil by the time it was retired in 1937.