Havana, San Juan, Canal Zone and Points South (revised version)

I. Introduction

This segment considers what happened to the mail that was originally intended to dropped off over Havana, when the sacks arrived at Lakehurst. We'll show that along with the mail destined for Havana (and other points inside of Cuba), mail for other destinations were sent along. Thus, Havana became a sort of distribution hub for the mail to Haiti, Porto Rico and the Canal Zone. It also seems that not all such mail went via the hub. Also there are a set of covers that raise suspicions as to how “kosher” they really; they seem to have traveled the mails but not to the destination on the envelope. This article is a newer, fresher version of the same material that I once wrote about in 2001/1/.

II. Havana Mail

First we need to examine the mail that was destined for Havana and the rest of Cuba. Most of the mail for Cuba and beyond does not have the characteristic green Lakehurst Zeppelin back-cancel (but exceptions exist and we'll go into them in the course of this article). When mail arrived in Havana, it received one or both of the usual Havana machine cancellations in use at the time. The predominant one being the airplane airmail slogan cancel depicted below. Besides this there was also a standard wavy line cancellation with a “1”.

Characteristic Havana airmail slogan

Alternate Havana wavy line with “1”.

A lot of dealers prepared covers for the intended mail drop at Havana. Among these one finds covers from von Meister, Redwitz and Blümel. Below we present an indicative cover of each with the name of the contact in Havana used as an address.

von Meister

Redwitz/Tönnies(Toennies)

Blümel/Deutsche Gesandschaft

In terms of facilitators, two other names appear often on covers sent to Havana, the first of them being Mr. Geo T Street. Below three typical covers sent to him. Citret is well known for the copious amount of covers sent on this flight to all possible destinations.

Citret/Street

Clark/Street

Even Roessler was along

Another actor in this act is Mr. John G. Kunz in Miranda, Oriente Province, Cuba, who had his own covers and acted as a go-between too.

His own mail

Here John Boyd was assisted

The Miranda arrival cancel on the backs of the covers.

There are some oddities in the Havana case. The first is the indication that the mail was sent to Havana in two distinct batches. The initial batch (and probably by far the gross of the covers) is back canceled June 2, 1930 and has NO green Lakehurst Zeppelin cancel. Yet, one cover in my collection shows that there must have been a batch (found later) that carries both the Havana cancel (but now the date is June 4^th!) and the Lakehurst green too. Probably was mixed into mail for the US, canceled before they noted that it was Havana mail, and sent it now with a delay. Below is the cover and the reverse with all the postal markings. Consult the table below.

Schwarz /Garcia with von Meister #

Lakehurst + Havana June 4th on the reverse

The last little case that concerns Havana mail demonstrates how easily some covers ended up being mis-routed and thus giving us a nice example of an auxiliary postal marking. G. P. Collier sent several letters, two of which I have in my collection. One was addressed to be sent to an addressee in Texas directly, and another to Havana c/o C. Warner. Somehow BOTH ended up going to Havana, giving us an example of the Havana P.O.'s “mal encaminado” marking.

The Cuba cover

The “Texan” that went to Havana

III. Canal Zone Covers

Havana seems also to have been the central distribution hub for further destinations in the Caribbean and Central America. Lets start with the West. A batch of mail went to the American controlled Panama Canal Zone. It seems that most of the mail sent from Brazil to this destination is the batch created and sent by Lobato, using his own preprinted envelopes. Below the two types I've seen up to now, the 59Es and 59DD. One hallmark of these covers is that the Havana airplane cancel on the front, and wavy version of the Cristobal, Canal Zone on the reverse.

Lobato covers to the Canal Zone via Havana

Yet, there is an example, somewhat similar to the cover sent to Havana, that arrived later and had a green Lakehurst mark too. In this case shown below, the card was canceled in Lakehurst and made its way directly to the the Zone (or at least no cancel confirming a passage through Havana – especially since the sender ad the routing notation “via New York”). Unfortunately, the Cristobal cancel on the back is smeared and on a spot where it seems impossible to see the date and compare it to the Lobato covers.

Canal Zone via New York direct

IV. Haiti

Now heading East from Havana, the first stop is Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Here one seems to see only what I would call Colson/Roessler covers, an example of which is displayed below. The rhombus cachet front and back as well as a Havana and Port-au-Prince cancel on the reverse. For the postcard rate (5$000/20$000) a simple green Liberty was used. But in the case of actual envelopes ( rate 10$000/20$000) it seems that two versions of the framed Roessler version were used.

Typical Colson/Roessler cover for Haiti – in this case -postcards.

Grey Liberty version

Green cachet version

[Note added: My auction archives have a Uruguay cover, but not addressed by Roessler]

V. Porto Rico

Now we come to a very controversial stop, the “Chapman” covers to San Juan, Porto Rico. The bone of contention being the infamous Roessler “via Parachute” supposed Porto Rico covers. This section is basically “a tale of two covers types”. Displayed below are versions of a “Chapman” cover; the first being, in my opinion, a “kosher” version and the other two very questionable Roessler creations that too many collectors fall for, hook, line and sinker. (Note: the second Roessler, picture from an Ebay auction by Leaderphil, doesn't have the Po Box corrected!)

A kosher general delivery version

The Roessler creations

One cover is addressed to general delivery, yet the Roessler version has a POB that seems to have been corrected with pencil. The following cover can bring some clarity into this subject. The cover below was sent to Germany by Chapman using the von Meister service. The rubber stamped on the return address is the final version seen on the Roessler cover. Interesting too, is that the general delivery cover is probably also a Chapman creation, since it too uses a Linprint airmail envelope. The general delivery address may well have been used to cause the San Juan P.O. to apply the rubber stamp on the back. In any case, this cover actually traveled through the mails and reached San Juan. [Note added: My auction achives show covers to Chapman with German and Spanish frankings, most typed and non-Roessler. There are two Roessler-type, with a mailbox cachet, addressed by hand with the Geo-type handwriting. But neither used a “Parachute”.]

A cover to Germany, created by Chapman and sent via von Meister.

Whether the Roessler did, is, for me, very questionable. Wilcsek maintains that since Infra-American mail didn't receive an arrival cancel. Yet there is no routing remark, as is the case for the Canal Zone postcard, that would explain why this Roessler cover (and all the other “Parachute” covers on the market – quite a few) got socked in Lakehurst and didn't go the “regular” route via Havana. In any case, I'll stick with a first cover as a proven and verifiable cover, that really went the route and doesn't need additional interpretation as to its validity.

Destination	Type	Addressee	Cancels
			Lakehurst	Havana-air	Havana-wavy	Auxiliary	San Juan	Canal Zone	Port a Prince
Cuba	59A	Mardorf		x
	59B	von Meister		x
	59B	Schwarz	x		x
	59D	Toennies		x
	59D	Toennies		x
	59D	Leblanc		x	x
	59D	Blümel		x
	59D	Blümel		x
	59D	Hauck		x
	59E	Warner/Collier		x
	59E	Collier		x
	59E	Blümel		x
	59E	Boyd/Kunz		x		x
	59E	Clark		x
	59H	Clark		x
	59H	von Meister		x
	59H	von Meister		x
	59H	von Meister		x
	59H	von Meister		x
	59DD	Citret		x
	59DD	Kunz		x		x
	59GG	von Meister		x
	59GG	von Meister		x
Canal Zone	59E	Lobato		x
	59E	Lobato		x				x
	59G	Fogan	x					x
	59DD	Lobato		x				x
Porto Rico	59E	Chapman		x			x	x
	59E	Chapman**	x
Haiti	59GG	Colson		x					x
	59GG	Colson		x					x

Table of currently known covers and the different cases

References:

Buyer Beware ! or Not Everything Is What It Seems To Be: Zeppelin 4(2), 8 (September 2001)