Antwort auf: LZ127 in Sevilla 1930

Dear Alfred and Klaus,

Klar – da stimme ich dir hundertprozentig zu! Die Sache hat nur einen Haken: zusammen mit @Klaus sind wir hier offensichtlich ganz allein auf uns gestellt. Mir sind zwar bei weitem nicht alle Mitglieder unsere Arbeitsgemeinschaft Zeppelinpost bekannt, aber ich bin sicher, dass mehr als einer über ein Archiv und/oder eigene Belege verfügt, die unsere Recherche-Plattform wesentlich erweitern könnten.

As in science in general: we are standing on each others shoulders, and more shoulders implies more progress (and vice versa).  And I assume that the Felzmann bidder on the Ms. Drummond-Hay card who was just behind me might very well have been one of the ArGe members …

2. I used your Sevilla numbers to check and correct mine and they were virtually the same. I assume that the numbers of Meister pieces arriving with Spanish stamps already stuck on them would have been rather low, probably only from some dealers, like your fantastic letter with the 1929 Airmail series, so they might be negligible in the overall count. The only piece of the puzzle left then is the distribution of the Meister mail over Friedrichshafen – Sevilla – Rio. I assume that this is known somewhere. If not, the only thing one can do is to repeat the Schier exercise, now for all three destinations over a number of different auctions in different countries (Germany, Spain, US, Brazil at least) and including hundreds of pieces so as to do some minimally reliable statistics. Maybe in some future life.

3. I love your (A.) Andorra letter. It does not have the complete series (4P and 10P missing), but note that the 30 c is the best of the whole series, rare also used. I guess pieces from Spanish African possessions will be very rare and will not affect the numbers even if not included here. Gibraltar would be a great origin indeed. Would you think that Uruguay was also a ’Schwarzfahrer’? I find the postage paid from there very low indeed, seems like the normal airmail fare.

4. Mr. Egolf: that seems to me to be sound reasoning. The hypothesis is falsifiable by finding a piece with an intermediate number but with different sender. On the other hand: the number is a minimum since it could be extended in both directions.

Best, until the next one,

Dik