The History and Romance of Air Mail Stamps _By Emil Bruechig_ EMIL BRUECHIG 522 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK CITY, N. Y. CABLE ADDRESS: “BRUECHIG,” N. Y. COPYRIGHT 1936 BY EMIL BRUECHIG The history of the flying machine reaches back as far as the earliest of man’s written records of his thoughts and ambitions. And one can only surmise how long ago it must have been, in the dim unchronicled past, when the idea of human flight first suggested itself to our ancestors. ¶ The ancient mythology of the Greeks reveals an interest in this problem. The philosophers who lived when Rome was ruler of the world, and the alchemists of the middle ages have left time-stained parchments of their thoughts and theories about artificial flight. ¶ And even today, after centuries of trial and error have brought an intangible dream to a streamlined actuality, the glamour and marvel of aviation still grips the minds of men. Hardly any device which humanity has fashioned has taken so lengthy a time to accomplish and, after being achieved, has been able to hold its place in the sun—in war and in peace. ¶ For it was war that brought the rapid development of the airplane into a machine that is serving man so capably as a peace-time vehicle. Bringing serum to the critically ill; winging food to flooded and snow-bound areas; transporting people over thousands of miles in a single day; and speeding up the wheels of commerce with its mail carriers; these are but a few of the almost magical feats which aviation has made possible. ¶ And, better than volumes of words could describe, one will find this vast panorama of man’s struggle for mastery over the air pictured in glowing colors and realistic scenes on the hundreds of air mail stamps which have been issued by almost all countries of the world. ¶ There is a tale of danger and daring behind each square of tinted paper, a pulse-quickening story of crossing fever-ridden jungles, battling treacherous, snow-clad mountain peaks, and risking the mocking death of desert wastes. ¶ It takes no great stretch of the imagination to visualize the magnitude and grace of the Zeppelins as pictured on the German air mail stamps. From afar, one seems to hear the deep-throated roar of the great engines and the whistle of the wind as it strums along the wires. The great “Graf,” air-traveler supreme, is flying before your eyes! ¶ One needs no trip to the Mediterranean to see the blue of its waters and the gold of its sun. The Grecian issue with an indescribable delicacy of line and color suffices. The ruins of the Acropolis, perched on their hilly site, before a background of cloud-studded skies, seem but a step away.