Pernambuco to Rio, The Zeppelin Arrives in Brazil

A Case Study for the Utility of Forums

Prologue: As my comment shows, I do “suffer fools badly”. If a forum, without someone in the know, is allowed to have the craziest premises posited, creating new “Urban Legends”, and misleading other collectors (especially the beginners), then it will soon become as useful as the forums for penny stocks in the NASDAQ, worthless or even worse. If the one-eyed leading the blind wears an eye patch over his good eye, nothing good can come of that. Language is a problem too. Prejudices say that Americas only speak English (but not according to the Brits), whereas Brazilians and Germany can speak English (as long as it isn't more complicating than High School English 102). Then when these all encompassing suppositions and conclusions are reached on the basis of two or so covers, i. e. lousy statistics, then the expositor of these ideas must confuse himself with a philatelic guru. Especially when the main literature that proves the falsehood of his assumptions are in his OWN LANGUAGE, and demonstrate his ignorance of these facts and sources. In this case, I see it as my duty to set the record straight. Since the forum contributor had seen so few Brazilians covers sent from Pernambuco to Rio on the first leg, he posited that perhaps the Zeppelin had not stopped in Recife, but gone straight on to Rio. On the basis of this flight of fancy, I present my PROOFs and version.

The Real Facts

First of all, so to speak from the horse's mouth, Dr. Eckener himself describes the landing in his memoirs /1/. It's always worth the effort to check the literature. Then there's the pictorial proof. The card presented here, is where a photo was made into a postcard, and note that the extra detail shows a Brazilian soldier next to an ad. To have been sent on the return trip, the picture was taken before, during the first time that the Zeppelin was in Recife, otherwise the time would not have sufficed to create this special souvenir sent to a Frenchman c/o an address in Berlin.

In Fact, even a special commemorative card was prepared. But even more interesting is a further card – again a specially prepared picture postcard, sent to Switzerland, that shows a scene during the first stay of the Zeppelin. The card has the word “afogados” (drowned) under the soldiers. Taking a look at the last picture (a later card) that shows that in the vicinity of the landing area, open water was present. Perhaps the soldiers drowned as the Zeppelin lifted off to go to Rio and became entangled in the lines.

The forum member correctly noted that there are covers with von Meister #s that took this leg. Quite a few in fact. Just two examples, sent by individuals well known in Zeppelin circles. And a non vM# cover, as an example of “local” mail.

All have the date 22.5.30, and were seemingly prepared ahead of time (the vM#'ed ones in any case). What is more interesting are the 23.5.30 covers, that all seem to have been locally and not a part of the von Meister setup.

The first example is a cover by Drum (see the Chicago Gang), whom we've met already. A further two demonstrate mail by locals.

And for those who like it even more exotic, some covers didn't do just the Pernambuco-Rio leg. The first cover is an example of a round-trip cover. After that, covers that traveled on to Santos and São Paulo.

References:

/1/ Dr. Hugo Eckener; Im Zeppelin Über Länder und Meere: pp315-7 (Verlagshaus Christian Wolff, Flensburg, Germany 1947)