The first official airmail flight from New Zealand to USA was in January 1938
via American Samoa, Kingman Reef and Hawaii.
The flight left Auckland on 2 January and the pilot was Ed Musick.
To Samoa
The first leg of the 1938 Auckland to US flight
was to American Samoa. The rate was 6d.
The example cover is addressed to Apia in Western Samoa.
It was flown to Pago Pago in American Samoa
and carried from there to Apia by sea.
The plane crossed the international date line.
Although the letter left
Auckland on 2 January 1938, it arrived in Pago Pago on 1 January.
This is shown on the backstamp.
The second cover is addressed to the UK although it
was only flown to Pago Pago where it was backstamped.
The specially printed cover gives the route; Pago Pago
is on Tutuila, the largest
of the seven islands that make up American Samoa.
To Hawaii
This cover is addressed to Hilo in Hawaii.
It was carried on the Auckland to Hawaii leg of the first 1938
Auckland to US airmail.
The cover has stamps to the value of 3/6 although the rate
to Hawaii was only 3/-.
The journey from Samoa to Kingman Reef was
on 2 January and from Kingman Reef to Hawaii on 3 January.
The date of arrival in Hawaii is shown on the backstamp.
Purple cachet
According to Walker [1],
covers with a purple cachet “although not rare, … are
extremely scarce”.
Krupnick [2] suggests that they are more common with
about 10% of the cachets being purple.
The lack of items for sale in auctions suggests
that the number is less than 10%.
The example cover has the cachet in purple.
It was flown to Hawaii and then returned to New Zealand by sea.
The cover has stamps to the value of 3/1.
The rate to Hawaii was 3/- and
so the 1d was presumeably for the return postage.
Black cachet
There are three different black cachets: to American Samoa,
to Hawaii and to United States of America.
They were applied by Pan Am to their own long covers.
This cover has the Hawaii black cachet and is addressed to
Honolulu.
These cachets are not mentioned by Walker [1] or Stapleton [3].
Auction descriptions often use this omission to suggest that the cachets
are rare.
However, the reason for the omission is that
they were part of the Pan American Archive and
did not appear on the market until after Pan American went
bankrupt in the 1990’s [4].
They are described by Krupnick [2], but I have not seen an estimate
of how many exist.
back
All scans were made by the author.
Information on this page is taken from:
[1] Airmails of New Zealand, volume 2 (1986) compiled by
Douglas A Walker,
published by the
Air Mail Society of New Zealand
[2] Pan American Pacific Pioneers, J E Krupnick.
[3] The New Zealand Airmail Catalogue, (2nd Edition, 1994),
James Stapleton.
[4] L Giles, The Kiwi, vol 53, p28, March 2004.