A 1938 Cover With A Story to Tell

What do New Zealand, Hollywood, an actor and model aircraft have in common?

Some fascinating things come across my desk.

This 1938 cover, from New Zealand to the USA, doesn't seem like much. However, I recognised the recipient's name. Reginald Denny was a successful Hollywood actor.

It was sent from Model Aircraft Supplies in Christchurch, which begs the question why they would be writing to an actor at an address other than "c/- MGM" etc.

The reason is that Denny was a mad aircraft hobbyist, who opened a hobby store on Hollywood Boulevard in 1935. It makes perfect sense for the shop in Christchurch to write to him. Denny also established "Radioplane", a maker of military target drones.

The cover is franked with SG91 and SG92, both have which are scarce with inverted and reversed watermarks. I'm going to play around and see if I can extract a watermark.

The two red marks across the airmail label makes this a jusqu'a cover. Jusqu'a means "up to", or in philatelic terms "as far as". The cover is marked "via Air Mail to England". The jusqu'a markings were applied when the cover arrived in England, and the cover would then have continued it's journey to the US by sea. Unfortunately, there are no other markings on the cover.

A fascinating little piece of postal history.