 | 1.
St. Petersburg-Tampa Air Boat Line | The St. Petersburg-Tampa Air Boat Line is acknowledged as being the first airline to operate with a fixed daily schedule. It operated for about 6 months beginning in January 1914. Mayor "Abe" Phil paid $400 for the privilege of being the first passenger. There are a number of Real Photo postcards made by a local photographer, all with the same style captions, documenting this early airline. |
| 2641 Visits
12 Items
Shared Album | |
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 | 2.
Aeromarine West Indies Airways | Aeromarine West Indies Airways, later called simply Aeromarine Airways was one of the most important airlines in the beginnings of air passenger travel in the United States. There are actually quite a number of postcards for this airline. The two Detroit to Cleveland cards are scarce. Virtually every other postcard for them is rare. |
| 2850 Visits
16 Items
Shared Album | |
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 | 3.
Lawson Air Line | Alfred Lawson was a visionary realizing the potential for commercial air travel. He built his first airliner at his factory in South Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1919. He flew cross country to Washington, D.C. to hopefully get backing from the government. He failed in that attempt but undeterred to went back to Wisconsin and built his second and even larger airliner. Unfortunately this plane crashed on its initial test flight. The Lawson Airplane Company ceased operations in 1922. |
| 2591 Visits
9 Items
Shared Album | |
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 | 4.
Alaska - All Airlines Operating There | The number of airlines operating in Southeast Alaska during its history from the 1920's is staggering. Most, if not all of the postcards available prior to 1940 were Real Photo types made by local photographers. Most of those are rare. Pan American Airways became interested in the mail routes in the 1930's and started Pacific Alaska Airways with an eye on the mail contracts. In 1940 Pan Am itself started regular service into Alaska. |
| 2595 Visits
54 Items
Shared Album | |
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 | 5.
American Airways & American Airlines | American Airways was formed in 1930 a result of the merger of 80-90 small airlines. In 1934 the airline was re-named American Airlines and became one of the largest airlines in the world. They were responsible for the DST, Douglas Sleeper Transport, which was a wider version of the DC-2 and was intended to replace the Curtiss Condor's sleeper service. After seven DST's were built the first version of the aircraft with 21 seats came off the production line designated the DC-3 and became one of the most important planes in airline history. The early black & white litho postcards are interesting. Next came the Sepia series and finally the color Chrome postcards. I doubt the World War II code breakers could have made any sense of American's postcard numbering system. I have the cards separated by the logos on the back of the cards rather than the postcard numbers. With each back logo I have the cards listed in order by the number. Sometimes they used the same number for two different cards. American Airlines hired Ivan Dmitri, an artist and pioneer in color photography, to take some photos for the early Chrome postcards. I've identified all those using his photos. After all the company issued cards I've listed the cards made by others and then airport cards. |
| 5272 Visits
187 Items
Gallery Album | |
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 | 6.
Chicago and Southern Air Lines | Pacific Seaboard Airlines won a mail contract in 1934 for the Chicago to New Orleans route. They moved their operations to Memphis, Tennessee and re-named the company Chicago and Southern Air Lines in 1935. They issued some interesting postcards including a small series of comic cards. In 1946 they started flying to the Caribbean and in 1950 acquired their first Lockheed Constellation aircraft. In 1953 they merged with Delta Air Lines. |
| 2468 Visits
42 Items
Shared Album | |
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 | 7.
Eastern Air Transport, Eastern Air Lines | Eastern Air Transport was formed in 1930 and the Curtiss Condor was their main passenger carrying aircraft. Fortunately for postcard collectors they made a number of great postcards prior to becoming Eastern Air Lines in 1934. All the cards are scarce to rare. The earliest postcards of Eastern Air Lines are also scarce to rare but become fairly common with later issues. The Chrome era postcards starting around 1947 are very common. In order to date those cards I used postmark data I've gathered on those issues. |
| 4179 Visits
125 Items
Gallery Album | |
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 | 8.
Gorst Air Transport | Vern Gorst started Gorst Air Transport in 1929 after selling his Pacific Air Transport airline to Boeing the year before. Vern Gorst is also known as the grandpa of United Air Lines because of his involvement in the merger of Boeing Air Transport, Varney Air Lines, Pacific Air Transport and National Air Transport which soon after became United Air Lines. |
| 2007 Visits
9 Items
Shared Album | |
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 | 9.
National Airlines | National Airlines was formed in 1934 and early on operated Lockheed 10 Electra aircraft. The airline grew substantially until being bought out by Pan American World Airways in 1980. |
| 2100 Visits
36 Items
Shared Album | |
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 | 10.
Northwest Airlines | Following the Air Mail Act of 1934 Northwest Airways changed their name to Northwest Airlines. Their main aircraft was the Lockheed 10 Electra and their earliest postcards show that aircraft. In 1937 they added the Lockheed 14 "Sky Zephyr" to their fleet, and in 1939 they added the DC-3. Some of their early Lithographic postcards came in black and white and several tints. Most are scarce to rare. Starting with the DC-3 their cards are more common and they produced some nice linen postcards as well. Their Chrome era postcards are common but are visually striking with their signature red tails. |
| 8063 Visits
159 Items
Gallery Album | |
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 | 11.
Pan American Airways - 1st Four Series | Pan American Airways has so many postcards I'm dividing them into different groups. The group in this album are the earliest postcards issued by the airline. The first three series are rare and the 4th series of high quality litho issues are more common. These are arguably amongst the most historically important airline issued postcards of any of the airlines of the United States. Completing the first 3 Series of these postcards will be a life long task as they don't come on the market very often and when they do they tend to be expensive. The 4th Series are more common and you should be able to complete that series in a few years. |
| 5159 Visits
94 Items
Shared Album | |
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 | 12.
Pan American Airways - Flying Boats | Pan American Airways is well known for their flying boats which gave them access to many areas of Latin America prior to airports being established. Some of the later aircraft also started flying to Europe and the far East. There are many great postcards in this section. I'm listing the cards in the order they were put into service by Pan American Airways. |
| 29817 Visits
221 Items
Gallery Album | |
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 | 13.
Pan American Airways - Other Great Cards | Postcards of Pan American Airways that do not fit into the 1st Four company issued Black & White Series or the Flying Boats album will be shown here. The destination cards are in the next album. Everything else Pan Am postcard related will be in this album. Included are some Pan Am issued Pacific Islands postcards and a large group of airport cards showing Pan American aircraft. It is interesting that not counting the Pan Am Sea Plane base in Florida there are more postcards from airports in Germany showing Pan Am aircraft than there are for land based airports in the United States. |
| 4499 Visits
254 Items
Gallery Album | |
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 | 14.
Pan American Airways - Destination PC's | Most airline postcard collectors prefer postcards with airplanes but there is a lot more to airline history than aircraft. Fortunately for collectors many other aspects of the growth of the airlines is available on postcards. Pan Am during its heyday was one of the major airlines flying around the world. They made a series of postcards usually given to passengers along with their tickets showing scenic views in countries they serviced. This type of postcard is commonly called a destination postcard. Many airlines made cards like this but no airline more than Pan Am. In this section I'm showing Pan Am's destination postcards issued prior to 1960. These are not popular with pictures of airplane collectors and most can be acquired for a few dollars or less except for the earliest Real Photo series. The postcards all show interesting views to promote traveling with Pan American World Airways. |
| 17915 Visits
186 Items
Gallery Album | |
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 | 15.
TWA - Trans World Airlines - TWA | Transcontinental & Western Air, later called Trans World Airlines or simply TWA, was formed from the merger of Transcontinental Air Transport, TAT, and Western Air Express in 1930. Prior to the merger TAT had purchased Maddux Air Lines and the postcards of Maddux Air Lines are included in this album. In 1934 Western Airlines became independent separating again from TWA. The famous Howard Hughes took over TWA in 1939-40 and built the airline into one of America's great airlines. The postcards shown in this album start with Western Air Express, then Maddux Air Lines, T.A.T., and finally T.A.T. - Maddux before the cards of TWA. |
| 9491 Visits
274 Items
Gallery Album | |
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 | 16.
United Air Lines B&W Series 1932-40 | The United Air Lines black and white series of postcards is the largest airline issued group of postcards from the 1932-1940 period. The earliest issues were Real Photo postcards some of which were later made as lithographic versions. The Real Photo versions I'll call "RPPC" and the lithographic versions I'll call "Litho" in the titles and descriptions. There are 4 distinct series. The first series has backs for both the Real Photo and litho versions. The second series were giveaways at the Century of Progress Exposition at Chicago in 1933 and 1934. These are the most common of the group. The third series has a map by itself logo on the back and features the Boeing 247. The 4rd series, featuring the DC-3 has a shield logo on the back. The first series is the only group that has any Real Photo postcards. All the others are black and white litho postcards. The first series has a number of rare cards. I still do not have all of them myself. If you collected only one card with a different image on the front of the card you would end up with around 85 cards. If you collected all the varieties you would end up with a little less than double that number. The date ranges I show for the different series are based on the postmarks I've seen for the cards in the series. |
| 22883 Visits
253 Items
Gallery Album | |
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 | 17.
United Air Lines - All Other Postcards | This folder includes the postcards related to United Air Lines that are not part of the company's first issued Black & White series or their extensive Menu postcards. They are in albums by themselves. United Air Lines was formed in 1931 combining Varney Air Lines, Pacific Air Transport, National Air Transport, and Boeing Air Transport under the parent company United Aircraft and Transport Corporation. After the 1934 Air Mail Act United Air Lines became an independent airline headquartered in Chicago. This album starts with the airlines which initially formed United Air Lines and all other postcards related to United Air Lines besides the significant 1932-1940 Black & White series and their extensive Menu postcards. There are both company issued cards and postcards from others. With the company issued Chrome postcard series there were so many cards related to Hawaii I separated them out. United promoted the Hawaii trips via Stratocruiser and they make a nice grouping of cards. As with the rest of my collection the cut off date, with a few exceptions, will be postcards made 1959 or earlier. The exceptions are usually airport postcards or a series of cards that run into the 1960's. |
| 2253 Visits
227 Items
Gallery Album | |
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 | 18.
Universal Air Lines System | Universal Air Lines was a subsidiary of Universal Aviation Corporation headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. It was absorbed along with 80-90 other small airlines into American Airways in 1930 which was re-named American Airlines in 1934. Universal Air Lines had daily schedules Chicago-Cleveland, Chicago-St; Louis, Kansas City-Omaha, and Tulsa-Oklahoma in 1929. Besides the Real Photo postcards there are two postcards issued by the airline. |
| 2485 Visits
14 Items
Shared Album | |
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 | 19.
West Coast Air Transport | West Coast Air Transport operated out of Portland, Oregon initially flying between Portland and San Francisco. There are a number of great locally produced Real Photo postcards made for the airline showing their Bach Air Yacht aircraft. Later they acquired some Fokker F.10 airliners. They were associated with Union Air Lines of Sacramento until Western Air Express bought them in 1929. The postcards are all pretty rare. |
| 2781 Visits
16 Items
Shared Album | |
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 | 20.
Four Cards or Less in My Collection | This album has postcards from airlines of the United States where I have four cards or less related to the airline. There are many rare cards in this group. I have the cards arranged by the decade when they first started operations. This album is a work in progress. |
| 4150 Visits
76 Items
Shared Album | |
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