I describe myself as an eclectic collector of postal history. I look for covers from any genre and era that have interesting stories to tell, and aerophilately certainly has plenty of those.
Crash covers – also known as “interrupted flight covers” – always have fascinating, and sometimes fatal, tales to tell. As the name suggests, these covers bear evidence of surviving an airplane crash. They show signs of burning and/or water damage and have some sort of marking or enclosure showing that the item was damaged in a mishap. Sometimes the damaged item will be sent to its destination in an “ambulance cover” as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1 – Crash cover (top) postmarked March 10, 1929, Burley, Idaho, with its “ambulance cover” postmarked March 14, 1929, Salt Lake City (bottom). A Boeing 40-B flying the route between San Francisco and Chicago crashed in a blinding snowstorm near Park City, Utah on March 11, 1929. The plane was destroyed in the ensuing fire, but the pilot survived and 29 of the 30 mail bags were rescued. Item is number 29030 in the Air Crash Mail of the World Catalogue, 2023. Source: Author’s collection.
One of the more remarkable crash covers in my collection is the one depicted in Figure 2. I acquired this cover at the 2024 Great American Stamp Show in Hartford, Connecticut from D. Morrison, Ltd., a dealer based in the United Kingdom who specializes in postal history and covers from unusual postal incidents (https://www.forpostalhistory.com/).
Figure 2 – Crash cover postmarked September 15, 1919, New York City (top) with label from Cleveland postmaster (bottom). Item is number 190915 in the Air Crash Mail of the World Catalogue, 2023. Source: Author’s collection.
What makes this cover so intriguing is the likely scribe of the address – John N. Luff (Figure 3), one of the most important philatelists of the 19th and 20th centuries. The recipient was August Roterberg of Chicago, an associate of famed magician Harry Houdini. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start with this cover’s postal journey.
Figure 3 – John Nicolas Luff, 1860-1938. Source: David Feldman International Auctioneers.
This cover began its trip in New York City. It was postmarked there at 2:00 a.m. on September 15, 1919. There is no stamp on the cover – it probably washed off in the effort to put out the flames from the crash – but it would have been franked with a common 2-cent stamp from the era, like the one shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4 – 2-cent George Washington stamp that appeared in numerous formats in the 1910s and 1920s.
The sender might have hoped, but had no certainty, that this letter would travel to Chicago by plane. Air mail service commenced between New York and Chicago via Cleveland on July 1, 1919, but separate air mail rates were discontinued by order of then Postmaster General Albert Burleson on July 18, 1919.(1) Mail carried by airplane would be charged at the first-class rate of 2-cents per ounce if space were available on planes that continued to fly in order to establish the transcontinental mail route.
As it turned out, this letter did leave New York by plane about 5:00 a.m. on September 15. After a plane change in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, it arrived in Cleveland around 9:00 a.m.
Together with 350 pounds of other mail, it was then hustled aboard a de Havilland DH-4 mail plane, the workforce plane of the U.S. Postal Department (USPOD), piloted by Edward V. Gardner (Figure 5). Gardner was an experienced air mail pilot. He was the second pilot hired by the USPOD when it took over flying the mail from the U.S. Army in August 1918.
Figure 5 - Airmail pilot Edward V. Gardner sits on the engine of one of the Post Office Department’s Curtiss Jenny (JN-4H) mail airplanes, August 1918. Source: National Postal Museum.
Gardner’s plane lifted off from Woodland Hills Field (renamed Luke Easter Park in 1980) in southeast Cleveland on its way to Chicago at 9:30 a.m. According to The Plain Dealer of September 16, 1919:
When the plane was 300 feet in the air and only a short distance from the flying field [about a quarter mile] the engine stalled. The pilot, because of low altitude, was unable to do much maneuvering. He tried to reach a small field [but] before he could reach the field the plane crashed to the roof of the [Mrs. William] Flagg home. The Flagg roof was badly damaged as the heavy machine slid across and plunged into the roof of the house next door, occupied by Mrs. Perry J. Lotz.
The heavy machine broke through the Lotz roof, causing a gas tank [in the] plane to explode. The machine was thrown clear of the house and fell in the yard, a mass of wreckage with flames playing where the gasoline had splashed when the tank exploded. (2)
Both houses were damaged, and the plane was demolished (Figure 6). Fortunately, no one on the ground was killed or seriously injured, and Gardner suffered just minor bruises about his face and shoulder.(3) Most of the mail was destroyed, and there are only three recorded covers from that crash, including the one pictured in Figure 2. A label was applied to the damaged mail with an explanatory message from Cleveland Postmaster William J. Murphy (1876-1942).
Figure 6 - Aftermath of the Air Mail Plane Crash. Source: The Plain Dealer, September 16, 1919, p. 9.
So where do John N. Luff and Harry Houdini come in? At the bottom of the cover, someone wrote in pencil “Handwriting of Mr. John N. Luff” (Figure 7). I don’t know who wrote that, but it could have been the letter’s recipient, August Roterberg.
Figure 7 – Close-up of handwritten note at the bottom of the cover shown in Figure 2.
Roterberg was born in Germany in 1867 and emigrated to the United States in 1883, eventually settling in Chicago. He was known as a manufacturer of magical equipment and as an author of books for magicians. One of his better-known books from 1902, Card Tricks and How to Do Them, is readily available from used book dealers. He was a close associate of Harry Houdini and even had a picture taken with Houdini (Figure 8).
Figure 8 – Portrait of August Roterberg (right), Harry Houdini (left), and Anna Roterberg (middle), Chicago, 1910s. Source: Library of Congress.
He sold his magic business around 1916 and devoted himself to collecting and selling stamps, especially those of Mexico and Latin America. He advertised in the Collectors Club Philatelist in the 1920s, and when he passed away in 1928 in Pasadena, California, his obituary noted that he was a “collector of rare old stamps.”(4) Among his holdings was a great rarity of Mexican philately: the 1921 10-centavos blue and brown "El Abrazo de Acatempan" with inverted center (Figure 9). This stamp sold at a David Feldman auction in late 2023 for €50,000, equivalent to about $55,000.(5)
Figure 9 - 1921 Mexico 10-centavos blue and brown "El Abrazo de Acatempan" with inverted center owned by August Roterberg. Source: David Feldman International Auctioneers.
I have a strong suspicion that Luff did indeed address this letter based on two pieces of evidence.
First, the letter was mailed from the Hotel Bretton Hall in New York City (Figure 10). This was a residence hotel – think apartment but without the hassle of a long-term lease. That was Luff’s primary residence per the New York City Directories of the day.(6)
Figure 10 – Corner card from envelope shown in Figure 2.
Second, I tracked down a sample of Luff’s handwriting. It is Luff’s penciled attestation on the back of the only known copy of the Boscawen, New Hampshire postmaster provisional (Scott 4X1). Figure 11 depicts that attestation and a close-up of the address from Figure 2.
Figure 11 – John N. Luff’s attestation on the Boscawen, New Hampshire postmaster provisional (top) and a close-up of the address from Figure 2 (bottom). Source for Luff’s attestation: “Resources” tab of Trish Kaufman’s website (https://www.trishkaufmann.com/) accessed August 29, 2024.
The handwriting looks similar, but there are two letters – “b” and “c” – both at the beginning of a word (or segment of a word) with distinctive marks that point to Luff addressing the cover himself.
In Figure 12, note the similarity of the letter “c” at the beginning of the word “copy” in the attestation and the word “Chicago” in the address. Both instances have a distinctive “o” at the top of the “c.”
Figure 12 – The word “copy” from Luff’s attestation (top) and the word “Chicago” from the address (bottom).
Even more compelling is the letter “b” at the beginning of “book” in the attestation and at the beginning of “berg” (in “Roterberg”) in the address (Figure 13). That is a very distinctive way of making a “b” and seems to clinch the case for Luff being the scribe. I only wish I had the enclosure to know what Luff was communicating to Roterberg.
Figure 13 – The word “book” from Luff’s attestation (top) and “berg” from the address (bottom).
This is an unusual crash cover since it is only one of three known to exist, but if it was addressed by Luff, that makes it all that much more special. Luff was a giant of the philatelic world and having a cover that he likely held and addressed is a real treat.
It is worth remembering Luff’s contributions to the hobby. He was among the first philatelists to apply scientific methods in his research. He was a stamp dealer, co-editor of the Scott Standard Stamp Catalogue (he eventually would become president of Scott), and a leading expertizer of stamps. He was among the founders of the Collectors Club of New York and twice served as its president. He also was president of the American Philatelic Society (APS) from 1907 to 1909. He signed the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists in 1921 and was named to the APS Hall of Fame in 1941 following his death in 1938. Since 1940, the APS has bestowed the Luff Award for meritorious contributions to philately. He also was a prolific author, and his 1902 book The Postage Stamps of the United States is still an invaluable resource.
If there is a takeaway from my experience with this cover, it is to always look beyond the postal history. You never know what you might find.
(1) The Postal Bulletin, July 21, 1919, Vol. XL, No. 12010.
(2) The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio, September 16, 1919, p. 9.
(3) Gardner, who was born in 1888, left the USPOD shortly after this accident and would die in 1921 in a barnstorming accident in Nebraska.
(4) The Pasadena Post, September 25, 1928, p. 16.
(5) https://www.davidfeldman.com/dfsa-auctions/2023-Autumn_Auction_Series/mexico/20321/later-issues-1921-10c-bluebrown-abrazo-de-acatempan-with-inverted-center-used/, accessed August 30, 2024.
(6) New York City Directory, 1918, p. 613.
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