 | 1.MexicoThe first airline is Mexico was Compania Mexicana de Transportacion, S.A., or CMTA. They operated two Lincoln Standard bi-planes in central Mexico. The second airline Compania Mexicana de Aviation. CMA, started in 1924 and bought out the assets of CMTA that same year. CMA prospered and was bought out by Pan American Airways in 1929. | |
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 | 2.Eastern Air Transport, Eastern Air LinesEastern 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. | |
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 | 3.Pan American Airways - Other Great CardsPostcards 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. | |
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 | 4.United Air Lines - All Other PostcardsThis folder includes the postcards related to United Air Lines that are not part of the company's first issued Black & White series. That series is in an album by itself. 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. 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 group 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 that run into the 1960's. | |
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 | 5.American Airways & American AirlinesAmerican 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. | |
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 | 6.NetherlandsKLM was founded in 1919, flew its first flight in 1920, and started regular scheduled services in 1922. The Netherlands is the birthplace of Fokker aircraft and KLM mainly used Fokker planes in the early years. Postcard wise KLM is known for the number of Real Photo postcards they produced both for their own airliners and some foreign airlines as well. They became a significant user of DC-2 aircraft in 1934 and added the DC-3 in 1936. I'm listing the aircraft in chronological order by when they were first put into service by KLM. Other airlines from the Netherlands will be listed at the end of the KLM postcards. | |
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 | 7.Northwest AirlinesFollowing 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. | |
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 | 8.TWA - Trans World Airlines - TWATranscontinental & 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. | |
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 | 9.GermanyThe earliest German airline using airplanes was Deutsche Luft-Reederei which started operations in 1919. They merged with Deutscher Aero Lloyd in 1923 and again with Junkers Luftverkehr in 1926 to form Deutsche Luft Hansa. In 1953 the name became simply Lufthansa. After DLR I'll list other airlines in the order they first started service ending with Lufthansa. The vast majority of the cards are from Luft Hansa. That section will list the aircraft in alphabetical order by manufacturer and in chronological order with the earliest from each company listed first. I'll add new cards as I acquire them. | |
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 | 10.2026 Car ShowsHere is a link to online videos on YouTube done By Go4rider. He does a really good job at it.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJNL6Nz8jIaDqnW3JYAegvA/videos | |
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| 11.2026 Car ShowsHere is a link to online videos on YouTube done By Go4rider. He does a really good job at it. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJNL6Nz8jIaDqnW3JYAegvA/videos | |
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 | 12.FranceFrance has a rich history of their airlines. I've listed the first airline, La Compagnie Générale Transaérienne, at the beginning of my listings and the other early airlines are listed in the order they started service. I've tried to list the aircraft for each airline in the order the planes were acquired. In John Stroud's great 680 page reference, European Aircraft since 1910, 171 pages were devoted to French aircraft. In 1933 five airlines were merged to form Air France. The postcards of Air France are listed next followed by other airlines that flew after 1933. This will be a long work in progress. | |
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 | 13.2025 Car ShowsHere is a link to online videos on YouTube done By Go4rider. He does a really good job at it. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJNL6Nz8jIaDqnW3JYAegvA/videos | |
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 | 14.W. F. Gerecke, Miami, Florida, U.S.W. F. Gerecke was a Miami photographer who, like C.H. Price of England, was in the right place at the right time to take photographs and make Real Photo postcards of the airport near where he lived. He was the most prolific photographer at the Pan American Airways sea base in Miami during the 1930's. His cards are high quality and most are not that expensive. His earliest postcards have hand written captions on the front of the card. There are some scarce to rare ones in that group. They generally have high image numbers printed with the captions. Soon he switched to a more formal block letter text system for the captions using lower numbers with the images. Some images are available in both types. There are some instances where the hand written text and the block text versions have the same number. There were two different Real Photo card stocks used for the Gerecke postcards. Most common are the cards with the DOPS stamp box on the back of the cards. Some cards also come with an EKC stamp box on the back of the cards. They are probably a second print run for that particular card. This album only shows the Real Photo postcards by Gerecke. There are some Linen and Black and White Litho cards using Gerecke images also. They are shown in the Miami Airport and PAA Flying Boat albums. | |
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