Wednesday, January 6, 2021

A bit of European postal history ... in my bottom drawer ...

 

I don't recollect having seen this before. But why would I? It doesn't immediately spring to the eye. Rather plain.. but today it fell out of its folder on to my desk and I said OK, OK ...





Its a postcard. Plain. 4 kroner and 10 heller's worth of stamps. The 4k one overprinted FLUGPOST. Its postmarked Vienna Centralstation, and also ?FLMOpost.Poczta.Lotnicza on the same date. Then back in Vienna ..  so our card has made a day trip to Krakow. And Lvov! By airpost. Oh! I see. Grandfather Pepi is sending his little son Fritz (my father, b 1911) the equivalent of a first-day cover by the new commercial airpost. Kriegflugpost ... war post ... Grüsse!

Here it is explained: https://www.stamp-collecting-world.com/austrianempire_airmail.html. So Pepi's card was confirmedly sent five weeks after the introduction of airmail in Austria. Which, if I understand aright, means in the world!

Now I see why Father sent us special (empty) envelopes on occasions like the first airpost out of Antarctica. I had that one until very recently. But this one is better ... I'm glad I found out it's significance. I'd better look some more ...

Oh! The address! I read it as L[e]uriggasse, but that doesn't exist. Wien VII. That's the Neubau. Pepi lived in the Neubaugasse at one stage, but that's not it. Dad always said he was born in the Mariahilferstrasse. That's not it either. Anyone got an idea? Ah! Burggasse 72 (Thanks, Chris!) 

A century later, here is the house ...




2 comments:

chrisz78 said...

Kurt, I can help your reading the German stuff. The address is "Wien VII., Burggasse 72"

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burggasse_(Wien)

and the back of the card reads "Kriegs-Flug Post Grüße / Mai 1918" (Greetings via War Air Mail, May 1918).

And the Polish postmark is "FLUGPOST . POCZTA LOTNICZA / LEMBERG 1 . LWOW 1" so the card didn't just go to Cracow but all the way to Lemberg/Lwów/Lviv.

Keep up the good work in 2021!

Chris from Berlin (we have communicated on Facebook before....)

GEROLSTEIN said...

Chris.. Many many thanks. THAT is a "B"? Oyyyyyyy! I know the Burggasse ... how silly of me ....

Wow! The little card did the whole exisiting airmail circuit then. Well, I have volumes of this writing to decipher you had better come for a holiday in New Zealand!

Kurt (ganzl@xtra.co.nz)