Early Aviation Postal History

[pigdoc]

Hi Folks,

Great to find this forum, although activity is very low!
I've recently become interested in documenting early aviation through postal history, stimulated by a read of McCullough's excellent book, The Wright Brothers. I am collecting postally used (only) picture postcards documenting the air meets of 1909-1911. I have about 50 items so far. Ideally, the items I collect were posted DURING the meets they document.

Postcards were extremely popular in the first decade of the 20th century, and, coupled with the absolute craze created by the spectacle of powered, heavier-than-air flight, there is a wealth of material out there to choose from. Starting the exhibit off, I have several cards posted in Sarthe in the fall of 1908, where Wilbur Wright was giving his demonstrations.

I just started reading an EXCELLENT book on the Gordon Bennett races, entitled Blue Ribbon of the Air, by Henry Villard (1976). Mr. Villard witnessed the emergence of the airplane directly.

Regards,
Paul

[Anders]

Hi Paul, and welcome to the forum!

Postcard collecting will keep you busy for a long time - thousands were published, and lots of them are available on auction sites like Delcampe. For many of the meetings that we cover postcards are the main source of illustrations. I mainly collect them for documetation purposes and prefer them unused, but I remember the excitement when I realized that one of my postcards from the 1909 Doncaster meeting actually was written and mailed by Léon Delagrange.

Anders