Classroom clipper, Vol. XIX, No. 1, October 1962

              October 1 962
Published by Pan American Airways
Vol. XIX, No. 1
MAIL MAN’ WITH ROUTE THAT COVERS 80 LANDS REACHES MILESTONE IN PHILATELIC HISTORY
When a Jet Clipper left Pan American Airways’ glistening umbrella-shaped terminal at New York International Airport, Idlewild, on July 2, 1962 to make the airline’s 100,000th Atlantic crossing, it was an event hailed as “a milestone in airport history.”*
The flight brought into focus the dramatic growth of global postal service and the role of Pan American as the pioneer in international aviation.
In observance of the occasion, the United States Post Office Department and the Postal Administration of the United Nations provided commemorative philatelic postal markings and cachet imprints on the covers. As Flight 2 took to the air on an itinerary that was to take it to London, Frankfurt, and continue on around the world, it carried in its cargo holds approximately 30,000 of these first flight covers, souvenirs of the event mailed by stamp enthusiasts of all ages.
300 COVERS CIRCULATED
The “first flight” cover issued for the 100,000th Atlantic crossing was the latest in approximately 300 such mementoes that have been issued for Pan American history-making flights.
First flight covers — souvenir mail placed aboard inaugural trips — tell the story of the worldwide airmail system of today. Since October 26, 1958 when Pan American carried the first jet airmail to Paris, the jet age has kept philatelists particularly busy.
Since Pan Am carried its first mail from Key West to Havana until the present when Jet Clippers carry the mail to six continents, Pan Am has been the leader in the swift delivery of the United States mail to the remote corners of the earth. Pan Am today is a “mail man” with a route that covers all of the 80 lands to which Clippers fly.
For stamp collectors attending major stamp expositions, one of the attractions often is a famed collection of first flight covers that serves as Pan Am’s ambassador goodwill to the world of aero-philatelics — the science of collecting airmail stamps and souvenir envelopes.
REFLECTS HISTORY
This exhibit of 200 first flight covers spans more than 15 years of history-making events
*New York Times, Sunday June 10, 1962
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in which Pan Am figured prominently. Winner of many awards, the 12 frames were recently shown at the First International Philatelic Congress in Barcelona and were selected for an award later presented at the Spanish Embassy in Washington.
Accepting the award for Pan American were Vice President Russell B. Adams and Ffed Bauer, 440 East 156th St., New York City. Mr. Bauer serves as biographer of Pan Am's philatelic history and designed the exhibit of first covers; he is widely-known as a collector and exhibitor of air mail.
One of the outstanding flight covers in the Pan Am exhibit, and in Mr. Bauer’s personal collection, is that commemorating the inauguration of the first comrnercial transocean airmail on November 22, 1935.
All mail carried on the China Clipper on its pioneering flight from San Francisco to Manila received a cachet showing the old clipper ship of the sea and the new one of the sky — depicting a century of progress.
The Post Office Department also issued a special airmail stamp and the Commonwealth of the Philippines overprinted two regular issues to mark the event.
Through the more than three decades of Pan American history airmail has linked the countries of the world. Today, stamps pic-
turing Pan Am Clippers dot the pages of philatelic collections.
Linn’s Weekly Stamp News says of Pan Am, “We have heard from fnany readers asking about this great line and we can report that it has done much for the philatelic world. There are today many Pan Am first flights in the hands of collectors . . . Pan Am had one first after another in its historic rise to heights as a world wide airline.”
“The flown souvenir mail and first flight covers we possess today form a memorial to the world’s greatest aviators and to the men of vision and courage who laid the foundation for the vast worldwide airmail system of today,” Bauer said.
PHENOMENAL GROWTH
Airmail as a source of revenue has grown for Pan Am since 1928 when the Company carried less than 1,000 pounds a day to the present when it transports more than 60 tons of mail a day, equivalent to 5,500,000 letters a day; as though every man, woman and child in the entire state of Massachusetts wrote a letter each day.
This growth is part of and parallels the growth of all U. S. international air mail. In 1930, the first year international airmail volume was recorded by the U. S. Post Office