14 Whole Number 227
by train to Kimberly—the nearest point
of the Imperial route. Addressed to
England, the cover was franked with
King George V and crocodile stamps
totalling 10 pence.
While on the subject of unusual ori-
gin-destination mail, the cover shown
in figure 64 was mailed in Bulawayo,
Southern Rhodesia, on December 7,
1933. Addressed to Singapore and
franked with 17 pence postage, it was
carried north to Cairo where it received
a CAIRE / PAR AVION handstamp of
Figure 63 Postmarked in the small Basutoland town of Mafeteng, this
12 December. This was the date that
cover traveled by truck, train and Imperial Airways in 1934 to England.
the first flight of new Imperial Airways
service from London to Singapore
made its stop at Cairo, and the
cover was undoubtedly transferred
to the eastbound flight.
There exists a great opportunity for
building a fascinating collection of
commercial air mail covers fo-
cused on unusual origin-destina-
tion combinations, but the mate-
rial is not abundant and the chal-
lenges are significant.
U.S. POSTAL PATRONS INVITED TO
USE AFRICAN AIR SERVICE
The registered cover shown in fig-
ure 65 was franked with the 16¢
Curtis Jenny (Scott’s #C2) and ad-
dressed to Gambia in West Africa.
It was not carried by air mail on
any stage of its journey, but the
POD had declared the stamp valid
Figure 64 Posted in Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia, in December 1933, this
for ordinary postage and here it
cover traveled north to Cairo on Imperial’s African route and was there
transferred to the first Imperial flight to proceed all the way to Singapore. The
paid a combination the five cent
17 pence in Rhodesian postage was equivalent to 34 U.S. cents.
ordinary surface rate plus ten cents
registry fee with an overpayment
of one cent. Posted in Los Angeles on February 10,
not only to air mail carried on the first flights, but all
1919, the transit backstamps provide us with details
mail transported on subsequent flights.
of the routing and delivery time typical for a first class
The cover illustrated in figure 63 was mailed from mail item from the US to Africa before the possibility
the town of Mafeteng in Basutoland on June 14, 1934. of accelerated delivery using air mail.
Basutoland was an African territory under British pro-
The cover reached New York on February 17
th
by train
tection—an enclave within the Union of South Af-
where it received an oval FOR’GN handstamp mark-
rica. It became independent in 1966 and changed its
ing from the exchange office. It was then carried by
name to Lesotho. The cover would have been carried
steamship across the Atlantic and handstamped in
by truck to Maseru, the Basutoland capital and then
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