La Semeuse - The Sower

It Might Be Worth Checking Your Stocks

Following a recent "wanted" request on the GOMC forum, for a copy of France10c red-brown La Semeuse (The Sower) with ground under her feet, the members searched through maybe 600 hundred copies of the Sower issue and found absolutely none.

A search of online auctions only located a handful as well.

These are listed in all the major catalogues (SG325/326, Scott 155), with values only marginally higher than the "no ground" issue.

I'd suggest keeping a lookout for them, they surely can't be as common as the "no ground" issue!

Trans-Atlantic Mail in the Age of Steam

The SS Bremen

The SS Bremen,  a German ocean liner launched in August 1928, undertook her maiden voyage from Bremerhaven to New York on July 16 1929. She was of 51,656 tons and 286.1 metres in length, and carried over 2,100 passengers and 966 crew. 

She arrived in New York in 4 days, 17 hours, 42 minutes, taking the west-bound Blue Riband speed record from the “Mauretania”. On her return voyage, she took the east-bound Blue Riband in 4 days, 14 hours, 13 minutes. She was the only ocean liner to achieve two speed records on her first two voyages. She completed 190 transatlantic voyages, and was the first ocean liner of her size to traverse the Panama Canal. 

A variety of postmarks are known, but manuscript and stamped cachets were applied for mail posted outside Germany. A Catapult Mail service, using a Heinkel He 12 seaplane mounted between the funnels (the catapult is just visible in the photo above), was in use from 1929 to 1936, when the speed of the Zeppelin “Hindenburg” made the service redundant. Catapult covers don't form part of my collection, as they are quite gaudy and usually covered in an abundance of cachets (reminiscent of the Tonga "Tin Can" covers).  An excellent site on the catapult process and catapult mail can be found here 

My preference lies with non-philatelic trans-atlantic mail.

Postal History - A 1943 Cover Tells It's Story

The Reason That I Love Postal History

The term "Postal History" was coined by the great Robson Lowe:

"Postal history is the study of postal systems and how they operate and, or, the study of postage stamps and covers and associated material illustrating historical episodes of postal systems"

That's quite a mouthful, that can be abbreviated to "what can this cover tell me?"

There is a belief that Postal History relates to very old material. I'd like to show that a relatively common cover from WWII can tell a fascinating story of it's travels and it's times

This is the cover.