pdf Swiss Airmail to the United States: A Rate Study: The Exhibit

Rate studies are a crucial part of philately. To understand a cover, we must know what rates for postage and auxiliary services applied at the time. We usually do not have access to the official post office documents that established the rates. Besides, even if we do have those official documents, we may find them ambiguous, partly because we may not understand precisely what the terms meant to the postal clerks. The effective rates are what the postal clerks actually did with mail! To discover and illustrate these effective rates, examples organized in a rate study are crucial!

The exhibit is divided into three major sections and two smaller ones. The first main section spans 1925 to 1939, during which planes could not yet fly mail across the Atlantic. However, the Swiss PTT negotiated rates so that Swiss citizens could use Swiss postage for airmail service within the United States. The second section covers the period from 1939 to 1981, during which a Swiss postage airmail surcharge could be used to pay for airmail both across the Atlantic and within the United States. In 1971, the calculation of basic postage plus an airmail surcharge was simplified to a comprehensive rate for airmail; however, services like registration were still additional. However, surface postage rates remained, so the mailer had a choice of whether to pay for airmail or not. The third major section began in 1981: the distinction between surface postage and airmail postage was abolished, resulting in a single set of rates, and all mail was to be transported by the most expeditious means. This generally meant airmail, so it falls within my scope of airmail rates.

The first smaller section features catapult and Zeppelin mail. Those services were active from 1929 to 1937 and offered limited opportunities for speeding up mail. The second smaller section is mail from Switzerland to Hawaii. There was not much mail volume from Switzerland to Hawaii, so the examples are not easy to find but are interesting. And between 1936 and 1939, airmail rates from Switzerland to Hawaii were higher than those to the continental US because mail could be flown by clipper from the west coast to Hawaii.

This exhibit shows the various airmail rates from Switzerland to the U.S. This is a rich history, with many nuances. There are three main periods:

• 1924 to 1939: Airmail could not be flown across the Atlantic, but Swiss could pay for airmail within the U.S. with Swiss postage. This is not well known, and examples are hard to find. Especially in 1924-1926 when the Swiss rates replicated the U.S. rate structure by zones.
• 1939 to 1981: Airmail was carried across the Atlantic. Many things happened during World War II as routes changed by necessity; censorship is worthy of a study in itself. This exhibit does not dwell on censorship or routing changes; its focus is on postage rates.
• 1981 to the present: separate rates for airmail were abolished, and presumably all mail went by air.

Those form the three major sections of the exhibit. There are two smaller sections:

• Catapult and Zeppelin flights
• Mail to Hawaii, which until 1977 had rates from Switzerland different from those to the continental U.S.

The exhibit includes all airmail rates, with examples of each and an explanation of the franking of each cover, including the surface rates and the rates for auxiliary services: registration, express, avis de reception, “eigenhändig”, as well as post card and printed matter rates.