Airmail labels
Besides collecting stamps, I cherish a small collection of worldwide airmail labels (or airmail etiquettes as some do call them). The history of airmail labels dates back to early 20th century and the era of first commercial airflights. AFAIK, the labels were born to ease the life of postal clerks by allowing easy separation between groundmail and airmail.
Most of the time airmail labels design features “a simple blue box” with words “Par Avion”; but there are some visually very attractive designs as well.
Below are some airmail labels from my collection. The top 2 rows contain etiquettes from Africa, then a row from Middle East followed by 3 rows of European labels. Finally some labels from Asia and America's.
In theory, anyone running a airmail service was able to issue their own labels. And as the labels were given “free” to customers, there has been no need for such high quality consistency as with postage stamps. Shortly put: the number of subtypes and variations is huge and pretty much unexplored territory.
Cover I received nearly decade ago from a fellow collector in Aland Islands. It features Aland ATM-label as well airmail/priority label.
AFAIK, there are very few catalogs for airmail labels. The most famous is “Mair Airmail Label Catalog” by U.S. Postal Label Society – a 600 page “brick” covering airmail labels from over 200 countries featuring roughly 3,000 illustrations. I admit I have plans to acquire it to my personal bookshelf one fine day, LOL.
Want more?
Sign-up to weekly newsletter and get notified when new articles like the above are published at Stamp Collecting Blog. The email-newsletter is sent to You once a week (during the weekend) and it contains a summary of latest new entries and discussions.
Show that you liked this article - and support Stamp Collecting Blog!
Clicking the Like-button below promotes this article on FaceBook:
Clicking the +1 button below promotes this entry on Google and GooglePlus.
Thanks for your support!
I used to collect these labels too, and also cuts from air mail envelopes, some of which were very colorfull.
I haven’t seen them in years, I wonder where are those labels now…..
Hope you’ll manage to find them