Mixed Franking for US Airmail pre 1930

Cook Islands to USA, 1928

Before July 1930, letters had to have a mixed franking of stamps: the airmail surcharge was paid in the stamps of the country providing the airmail service, while the surface rate was in the stamps of the country where the mail originated.

An example is the following cover from the Cook Islands to the USA in 1928. At that time, New Zealand stamps were not accepted for payment of the airmail surcharge in the USA.

This cover is addressed to Cleveland, Ohio and was sent from Rarotonga (Cook Islands), a New Zealand Dependency. It is franked with a New Zealand George V 3d overprinted Rarotonga together with a US 10c airmail stamp.

The 3d stamp was postmarked in Rarotonga on 2 May 1928 while the US stamp was postmarked in San Francisco on 8 June. There are two Cleveland backstamps of 11 June and it was presumably flown there from San Francisco by US air services. I assume that the route from the Cook Islands to the USA was by sea via New Zealand.

The US domestic airmail rate had been set at 10c on 1 February 1927 and from 1 June 1927 that was also the airmail surcharge for mail from abroad. On 1 August 1928, the domestic airmail rate was reduced to 5c while the airmail surcharge for mail from abroad was reduced to 4c [1]. The above cover is at the 10c rate while the next cover is at the reduced rate.

New Zealand to New York in 1929

This letter from New Zealand to New York is postmarked in Auckland on 23 December 1929.

It has a mixed franking of a 1d New Zealand stamp to cover the surface rate and 5c in US stamps to cover the US airmail surcharge. It is interesting to note that both the New Zealand and the US stamps are postmarked in Auckland. In the previous example, the US stamp was not postmarked until arival in the US.

This cover would have been carried to San Francisco by ship and flown from there. The US term for this was to accelerate mail delivery.

As you might expect, it was a far from simple process to determine the required foreign rate and to acquire the necessary foreign postage stamps. Such mixed frankings are therefore unusual.

That arrangement could not continue if international air mail was to become commonplace and so, at the Universal Postal Union Convention held in London in 1929 an international agreement was reached that prepayment could be made in the stamps of country from which the letter orginated. This came into force on 1 July 1930.

I have been unable to find other examples of 1920s mixed franking airmails from New Zealand and have written an article describing the ones shown here [2]. Crewe shows a 1925 cover with mixed franking from Hong Kong flown by internal US mail services [4].

Air Mail from USA 1926 - 1928

Mail could be flown internally in the USA and then sent by sea to New Zealand from San Francisco.

This 1926 cover addressed to Hastings in New Zealand is postmarked on 9 June 1926 in Claremont, New Hampshire and has a San Francisco transit mark on 11 June. It is franked by a 24c airmail stamp to cover the airmail surcharge and 5c to cover the surface rate.

It has the manuscript Air Mail via New York - San Francisco. That route passed through three zones, each of which in 1926 cost 8c.

The next cover is addressed to New Zealand and is postmarked on 25 August 1927 in Portland, Oregon. There is a San Francisco backstamp on 26 August and a Via Air Mail cachet in purple.

Portland to San Francisco was part of air mail route CAM 8 which was from Seattle to Los Angeles and had been operated by Pacific Air Transport since September 1926.

This cover was sent on the first flight from Galveston, Texas to Dallas on 6 February 1928 and is addressed to Fielding in New Zealand. As well as a 5c stamp to cover the surface rate, it is franked with a 10c US airmail stamp, the US airmail surcharge from February 1927 until August 1928.

It has a San Francisco transit mark on 9 February and a Fielding postmark on 28 February due to it being re-directed to Dannevirke.

Prepayment in New Zealand Stamps now allowed, July 1930

To Canada via US airmail, July 1930

Mail steamers from New Zealand left once a fortnight for either San Francisco or Vancouver. The first mail to use either US or Canadian airmail services with the cost prepaid in New Zealand stamps left Wellington for San Francisco in the S.S. Makura on 15 July 1930. A total of only 48 items was sent to all destinations.

This cover is postmarked on 14 July in Christchurch and is addressed to Toronto and so was flown on both US and Canadian airmail services. It is franked with 5d made up of 4d airmail fee plus 1d surface postage.

On arrival in San Francisco, mail that was then to be flown was sent by ferry across San Francisco Bay to Oakland Airport. The purple cachet Ferry Station was applied to this mail.

This cover would be flown on route CAM 18 from San Francisco to Chiago and from there by National Air Transport to Detroit and from there by Canadian Airways to Toronto where it was backstamped on 4 August.

To UK via Canadian airmail, July 1930

The first acceptance via Vancouver left Auckland a fortnight later on 29 July.

This cover is postmarked in Christchurch on 26 July 1930 and is addressed to the UK with the routing via Canadian Air Services.

It left New Zealand for Vancouver on 29 July. The likely route is that it was then sent by rail to Calgary, flown from there to Winnipeg, then to Toronto by rail before being flown to Montreal. From 1927, the Canadian postal authorities had inaugurated a summer airmail service from Montreal to Rimouski which is in the St Lawrence Estuary [3]. Mail was transferred at Rimouski to trans-Atlantic steamers and that is likely to have happened with this cover.

The cover had arrived in Sutton Coldfield by 27 August. It was Francis Field's practice to affix a ½d stamp and get it postmarked to prove the arrival date.

It should be noted that both the air mail label and the manuscript have been crossed out by two parallel purple lines. This was applied after the last air mail leg to indicate that the rest of the journey was by surface mail.