Post by dcstamps on Jul 29, 2014 18:07:25 GMT -5
Netherland Indies Album page 12 - Introducing Air Post
Here is a very interesting site (the graphic above is from the site) covering the establishment of air mail between the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies. While the first flight between the Netherlands and Netherland Indies was in 1924, the first mail flight (via KLM) took off from the Amsterdam took off on Oct 1, 1928. Ten days later it arrived in Batavia (today Jakarta) 10 days later. It took 12 days for the return flight. Over the coming years, regular service between the two cities was established.
Surcharged / Overprinted Air Post Stamps (Scott #C1-C5)
Before the Transoceanic airmail was firmly established, intra island air post began in Sept of 1928. The first Air Post stamps for the Netherland Indies were overprinted with an airplane and surcharged with the appropriate rates on regular issue stamps. These were "provisional" stamps and were used as a stop-gap until printed stamps arrived from the Netherlands. The lower values were used for inter island postage.
I found this interesting short article in the Sept 13th, 1928 edition of Flight Magazine.
Amsterdam-Batavia Stamps
"It is a happy inspiration to place upon the new Dutch
air post stamps about to be issued for the Amsterdam-
Batavia service the likenesses of the pioneer aviators who
originally accomplished this long-distance flight. The pilot,
Van der Hoop, who made the first flight in October, 1924,
appears on the 75 cents stamp which is for letter postage,
and Lieut. Koppen, who last year reduced the time record,
upon that of 40 cents representing the post-card rate. Both
designs are the work of the eminent artist, Chris. Lebeau,
the 40 c. being printed in red and the 75 c. in green.
In the Dutch East Indies themselves a local air post service
is to be put in operation between Batavia and the other
chief towns of Java on September 1, when provisional air
post stamps of 10/12 c. , 20/25 c. and 40/80 c, are to be
issued pending the arrival of regular air mail stamps of
those denominations on order from Holland."
Planes over Temple design Air Post stamps (Scott #C6-C10)
On December 1st, 1928 the stamps finally arrived from the Netherlands and were placed on sale.
Air Post stamps surcharged 30c (Scott # C11-C12)
On Oct 13, 1930, mail rates for 5 gram letters to the Netherlands were reduced (reduced? , would never happen today) from 40c to 30c. The first run of stamps were surcharged in black, and the second run in 1932 were surcharged in green.
Here is my Album Page 12
Note that I try to use my call outs to explain a little more about the stamps that were issued.