Stamps That Tell a Story
We kick off our regular series on glider-related aerophilately.
Simine Short has a special interest in aviation postage stamps, but is especially interested in those representing motorless flight. Each month she has promised to tell us a little of the background behind some of the favourites in her collection. Sometimes it will be a story about the stamp, or perhaps the history of the glider shown. She says that unlike her husband Jim she isn’t a glider pilot but feels very comfortable in a cockpit, though not as a solo pilot. Doug Lamont, the legendary Editor of Soaring way back in the 1970s and 80s, called Simine a ‘paper pilot’ because, as he wrote in the March 1981 issue of the magazine, “not all soaring history is kept in books, and not every pilot flies in a cockpit”. She promises that this will be a fun to read column which will encourage readers to send in their contributions, as Simine explains below. — Ed.
There are many ways to collect stamps and many kinds to collect. Everybody chooses according to his/her own taste (and pocket-book). I collect postage stamps showing gliders, model gliders, images with air currents and clouds, or aviation pioneers with some connection to soaring. One can easily include stamps showing soaring birds and mythical gods soaring or even gliding sites.
As of today, there are about 800 gliding/soaring postage stamps and postal stationary pieces issued by about 105 countries.
To get you, the [RC] soaring pilot, started on a different approach to having fun with our sport, each month I will show you a picture of a stamp with a short story, giving not only the basic information (which country issued the stamp and the date) but also some of its background, because each of these small pieces of paper can tell us something. The stamps being featured over the next months will depict:
- One of the many aviation pioneers from the last turn of the century, thus it will be a little educational.
- High performance machines from days long gone.
- High performance sailplanes which you may have flown recently.
- There may be some political stories of how the postage stamps came to exist.
- Stamps showing a pilot who has many glider stories to tell, some of which will be passed along to you.
- Or the stamp may show something special to you, the reader.
We will start with some of the stamps used for the Mail Box heading in the Motorgliding International magazine, published in 1998/99. The goal is a two-way sharing of information. I will tell what I know, but then you, the reader, may wish to respond with some of your stories about this same stamp. Perhaps you will have flown a particular ship being featured; flown over the same area shown on the stamp or there may be other intriguing details you would be happy to tell us about. (Please post your contributions in the Responses section below. — Ed.)
We will make this a fun to read and fun to write series, hopefully bringing out new information. To whet your appetite, I will start this series with a stamp that honours one of the seminal gliding pioneers to whom many, including the Wright Brothers, acknowledge as influential on their own thinking:
Otto Lilienthal
This stamp was issued in Berlin, Germany, on April 13, 1978, called Aviation Pioneer Otto Lilienthal and designed by Fritz Haase of Bremen.
In 1978, the Deutsche Bundespost started a new semi-postal ‘For the Youth’ stamp series. The theme was the development of aviation in Germany. The four-stamp set, issued in Berlin, was in conjunction with the 130th birthday of Otto Lilienthal who did most of his flying experiments in Berlin-Lichterfelde in the early 1890s.
The stamp’s design was adopted from this photo showing Lilienthal in the Vorflügelapparat taking off from his Fliegeberg (take-off hill). It was taken by Dr Richard Neuhauss on May 29, 1895. Image No. OLM F0113LF is available through the Otto Lilienthal Museum, Anklam, or their website.
There have been some misprints of the stamp with 40Pfg omitted.
For more than twenty years, Otto Lilienthal and his brother Gustav studied aerial navigation by watching the way birds flew. After many experiments with flat wings or plane surfaces, Otto became convinced that it was the gentle parabolic curve of the wing which enables a bird to sustain itself without apparent effort in the air, and even to soar, without moving the wings, against the wind.
©2002, 2022 Simine Short
Resources
- Lilienthal, eine Biographie, by Werner Schwipps, published by Arani-Verlag, Berlin in 1979.
- Moedebecks Taschenbuch zum praktischen Gebrauch für Flugtechniker und Luftschiffer, by Hermann W. L. Moedebeck, published in 1906.
- Pocket-Book of Aeronautics, by Hermann W. L. Moedebeck, published by Whittaker&Co, London in 1907.
- 100th Anniversary of Human Flight, Otto Lilienthal, history, postmarks and stamps by Simine Short. Airpost Journal, Vol. 62 №7, July 1991.
- Glider Mail: an Aerophilatelic Handbook by Simine Short and Dan Barber.
- Otto Lilienthal Museum — From the website: “In 1891, the civil engineer Otto Lilienthal (Germany) succeeded in achieving the first safe, multiple gliding flights in history. Lilienthal’s experiments and his scientific approach were adopted by the Wright Brothers…in their quest to develop a controllable, self-propelled flying machine.”
- The Flying Man, Otto Lilienthal’s Flying Machine by Vernon, published in McClure’s magazine, September 1894.
- Otto Lilienthals Luftfahrtkonstruktionen auf Briefmarken und in postalischen Stempeln — Motivbestimmungen nach neuestem Stand by Manfred Neumann, Luftfahrt, Vol. 25 №4, December 2001.
This article first appeared in the February, 2002 issue of Gliding magazine. Simine Short is an aviation researcher and historian. She has written more than 150 articles on the history of motorless flight and is published in several countries around the world as well as the United States. She is also the editor of the Bungee Cord, the quarterly publication of the Vintage Sailplane Association.
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