Zeppelin-Eckener-Spende
1926 - Zeppelin-Eckener Fund

Charity stamps issued to raise money to build passenger Zeppelins after WWI.

The peace treaty Germany signed in 1918 forbade her to construct weapons, including Zeppelins, which had been mostly symbolic in the War, but nonetheless were hated by the French and English. Count Zeppelin was dead (he died in 1917), but Hugo Eckener, his successor, was determined to continue the dream. In 1926, realizing that there was no prohibition of private efforts to build Zeppelins, he appealed to the German people for funds, and they responded with enthusiasm. His campaign included souvenir postcards pins, medals, and these three souvenir stamps - 10pf red for contributions from "The German People", 5pf green for "German Women", 5pf blue for "German School Children" - and was a resounding success. The Graf Zeppelin, LZ 127, was the result, and Zeppelins were reborn.

1933 Wiener Internationale Postwertzeichen Ausstellung
Vienna International Philatelic Exhibition of 1933

This stamp was part of a set of ten stamps issued for this renowned philatelic exhibition, produced in twenty different colors (two printings of ten colors each). For a lot more about WIPA poster stamps of 1933, please visit my web page devoted to the topic - HERE.

Yes, one of those shows a train, not the Zeppelin. I don't have the reddish-orange Zepp, so for now I'm filling in with the other design. You can see all twenty colors of the train HERE. Don't expect to be able to match your own examples to these scans, there are too many variables in scanners and monitors, and some of the distinctions between the shades are too subtle, and many stamps have faded or aged in other ways, but the scans above should be helpful in sorting things out, and once you get all twenty, you will know - I have never found one I could not match to a known color first-hand. Below is an example of a block of all ten designs (click on the image for an enlargement).

GORDON BENNETT BALLOON RACE, 1912

The set of stamps below, to advertise the 1912 race, is a popular one. The 1914 Cazin and Rochas catalog claims they were printed in nine colors of ink on nine different papers, so this is just a small fraction of the total number of color combinations theoretically available. (I count at least nine different ink colors in the ones shown here, and eight or nine paper colors.)

For more about Bennett, see http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/gordon.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gordon_Bennett,_Jr.

Below are cinderellas created for other Gordon Bennett Balloon Races, but none shows a zeppelin.

The pair of Polish stamps shown just above are real postage stamps, not cinderellas. Poland hosted the races in 1936, and issued this pair of overprints to commemorate the event - Scott Poland 306 and 307.

GERMAN ADVERTISING

METZELER RUBBER COMPANY

Note that only two of the stamps shown here depict zeppelins/dirigibles - the rest are all non-rigid or semi-regid balloons.

(More about the Parseval balloons - here.)

One could challenge the inclusion of other items on this page. There were many other rigid, semi-rigid, and non-rigid airships built in the first decades of the twentieth century, and some of them had the same long, narrow shape as the zeppelins. I've chosen to show almost anything that looks like it could be a zeppelin, or imitative of one.

GLOBIN SHOE POLISH

Aside from the product they sold, I don't know anything about Globin, and they seem to have no modern successor, but they sure issued some great poster stamps. The one with a zeppelin shown here was part of the set of 12 shown to the right. What shoe polish has to do with any of the activities shown I will leave to you to decide.

FISCHER BEARINGS

This stamp was issued as part of a set of ten to mark the 30th anniversary, in 1913, of Fischer Ball Bearings, Inc. (F. AG)

The company is still in business today.

WWI: BRITISH AND GERMAN PROPAGANDA LABELS

BRITISH PROPAGANDA LABELS
"ZEPPELIN TRIUMPH"

Issued in 1914, in sheets of 40 with four designs, with several different frame colors:
' Lusitania ',   Edith Cavell ,  ' Kultur has passed here ' and 'The Zeppelin Triumph', with 'Winox ' advertisements on the reverse.

The message is that the Germans are cruel and barbaric.
(I have seen French postcards with similar themes.)

The ones I own have two different wordings of the ad on the back -
Published for charitable and patriotic purposes by WINOX LTD, Richmond, Surrey, ENGLAND. WWC
and
Published by WINOX LTD, Richmond, Surrey, ENGLAND. WWC

I have been unable to find out what Winox did, though the link above explains the issuance of the stamps - "Lewis Campbell-Johnston, Chairman of Winox Ltd. Collected Propaganda and Commemorative stamps." There are some modern companies of that name, but I don't think any is the successor of this one.

GERMAN PROPAGANDA LABELS
"GOD PUNISHES ENGLAND"

"God punishes England" was a popular theme on German poster stamps of the era, with the Zeppelin a symbol of German technology and military might. Zeppelins turned out to be ill suited for combat, and did not figure significantly in the War. Their primary impact was symbolic, as a representative of technical superiority (to the Germans) or barbarity (to the British).

Like the Gordon Bennett stamps above, this design was produced on many different papers, and with many inks. I have seen fifteen variations so far.

(The online translator I used says "Gott Strafe England" translates "God Punishes England", but other sources translate it "May God Punish England" or just "God Punish England".)

NOTE: This phrase gave birth to the English word "strafe", meaning "to attack (ground troops or installations) by airplanes with machine-gun fire; to bombard heavily."

MATCH BOX LABELS and trading cards