Postage Stamp Chat Board & Stamp Bulletin Board Forum
 

Forgive my ignorance regarding this topic, but now that l became a stampboards member, l finally have the chance to know the answers that l had been accumulating for years without getting any information on them.

Thus, l would like to know what was their main purpose. Obviously, they had to be used in letters carried by airplanes. Let´s take Hungary for example, a small country in the heartland of Europe.
Why would someone buy airmail stamps to send a letter from Budapest to Gyor which is within a couple hours drive, for example ?
Would that mean that a letter with airmail stamps would travel by air in opposition to its counterparts, which would be shipped by land ?
Did it mean a premium postage in order to arrive faster to its destination ?

Then you will have to forgive mine too.

I have also puzzled about this. When airmail first became available there was a proliferation of airmail stamps and overprints, but they seem to have been used interchangeably with regular stamps.

As long as the postage was correct, the article was carried in the mail, whatever the type of stamp.

I can only assume they were produced as an advertising method to promote awareness of airmail services. But I could be wrong. It would be interesting to hear from someone who knows for certain.



Strange coincidence. I know a family from Györ. They adopted the name Györi when they came to Australia because their Hungarian name was unpronounceable to us.

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A man might as well marry ... if he finds a good wife he will be happy ... if not, he will become a philosopher.
Collecting Greater New Guinea & Macropods (Kangaroos & Wallabies).

What really confuses me, is why if one sends nowadays a letter from the USA to New Zealand for example, people are sometimes required to write down "air mail" or "par avion" or use the blue stickers . Now that we are in 2012 if l don't do that what are the options ?: my mail goes from the US to New Zealand by boat, submarine, spacecraft, sperm whale, bottle or what ?

If you required to do so, at no extra cost , as l never was, wouldn't everybody just do the same, which seem to be a pretty obvious thing to do ?

I may understand that a letter sent from Fidji to Tonga can travel either by boat or airplane ( the latter would be obviously more rapid reaching its destination ), and this would probably cost a bit more. But l don´t see a letter traveling from Hong Kong to Ireland by train, boat or van instead of just airplane.

A lot of mail and a lot of parcels are still sent by sea (surface mail) depending on origin and destination. It's still cheaper by half price sometimes just one third cost of sending by air.

Some countries also don't seem to make Airmail stamps anymore either, they are "International" stamps.

But originally? Because you paid a bit more to have your mail arrive quicker than over land and via sea. That hasn't changed.

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Greg - Looking for Goulburn Australia Cancels and Grangemouth Scotland Cancels and Covers
Member of the S.T.A.M.P Club for Slightly Twisted And Mad Philatelists - Motto: "Bring back the lick!"

All international mail from the US is sent by air mail.

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Jay Carrigan
http://www.jaypex.com

Today, in Australia, it is no longer necessary to have an air mail sticker or cachet on mail, because air is the main method of carrying mail.

If you send an item by sea post, it now gets a big prominent SEA POST sticker.

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A man might as well marry ... if he finds a good wife he will be happy ... if not, he will become a philosopher.
Collecting Greater New Guinea & Macropods (Kangaroos & Wallabies).

It's still an excellent question, which I have also asked myself:

- Was there a different tariff for airmail specifically? If you paid the same tariff with normal stamps, would your letter also not travel by airmail? Or would it have sufficed to stipulate 'airmail' on the envelope, without the need to use airmail stamps?
- Would the airmail stamps really have been recognized by the Post as meaning that the stamps needed to travel by air, or was that communicated on the envelope? If you had used airmail stamps, but with the tariff of surface mail, would the envelope have been rerouted to surface mail, or would the letter have travelled via air, with a surcharge imposed on arrival?
- In a nutshell, were airmail stamps just a gimmick, or did they serve a real purpose in the process of carrying mail and were recognized as such?

I am sure there are experts on Stampboards who understand this subject and would be able to explain this well.