The George J. Gruen Covers Out of Cincinnati

Looking at how often one comes across a “Gruen” cover addressed to Time Hill in Cincinnati, Ohio, the conclusion that he was a dealer would seem obvious. Yet, this man was one of two sons of the founder of the Gruen Watch company, whose factory building, known as Time Hill, has even been officially registered as an historic building on 29^th of February in 1996. If he dealt with these covers as a part-time occupation is unknown, but these covers could also have been used as business gifts for associates in Switzerland etc. who also collected Zeppelins /1/.

His repertoire of covers limited itself to the three values carrying the “USA” surcharge. The preparation of the covers seems to have been partially done in Recife. Strong evidence presented elsewhere indicates that these covers, as well as those for Karl Klipstein, where prepared by the organization of Carlos von den Steinen, the agent in Pernambuco (Recife) for the Hugo Stinnes Linien, a German shipping company.

59D

There are two principle varieties of this type. The first consisted of using a prepaid postal card (lined on the back) and adding the necessary addition Brazilian postage plus the Zeppelin stamp. A slight variety occurs in the number of the large Recife cancels has been applied. As well as the Lakehurst arrival green cancel is present on the front and/or the reverse.

	Figure 1: 2 Recife strikes	Figure 2: Card reverse	Figure 3: Triple strike

A further variety is seen in Fig. 4, where German commercially preprinted cards with the portrait of Dr. Eckener were used to the create the covers.

	Figure 4: Eckener card version

59E

Here there is only one basic type, a plain envelope with the address typed in violet. But the processing in Recife created three sub varieties that are easily kept apart, as Figures 5 to 7 illustrate. It involves the way the stamps have been placed in the corner.

	Figure 5: left-right.	Figure 6: reversed	Figure 7: above

59F

Up to now I haven't found anything besides the basic cover illustrated in Fig. 8.

Figure 8: Standard cover

References:

/1/ Wikipedia