#AIRMAIL

[belovedapollo]

photo dump from my notion 📝 reblog is ok, don’t repost/use

[sovietpostcards]

Soviet New Year postcards featuring holiday mail. I remember sending cards to all relatives as a kid. My grandfather always got heaps of mail around the New Years - from all extended relatives, uni friends, army comrades etc. He let me open the envelopes and be the first to see the card inside - it was so exciting!

[a-shooting-jade]

anyone wanna be penpals? we don't even have to send each other letters physically. we can write them out and make them look all pretty and just send the photos of the letters.

I just wanna get into writing letters and reconnecting with the idea of taking time to really think about the person you're writing to, and having something tangible to show for it. I think that'd be pretty neat

[newyorkthegoldenage]

This 1927 poster promotes the airmail connection between New York and Chicago, the nation’s largest business centers.

The Post Office had a difficult time persuading average Americans to use airmail service at first. Banks were the most enthusiastic of the early commercial users . They were able to reduce the float time of checks by using airmail to send them more quickly. For most Americans, however, the speedy service did not compensate for the significantly higher cost. The cost per ounce for airmail service began at 24 cents per ounce at a time when regular mail service cost only 3 cents. The Department began a series of rate cuts as incentives. At one point at the end of 1918, the Department offered airmail service between selected cities at a mere 6 cents per ounce. The price for airmail bounced up and down over the next few years, with rates tied to different levels of service, including distance.

Photo: National Postal Museum, Smithsonian Institution

[randomluck-ofthe-universe]

one year ago today 💙

#February 4th 2023

[danskjavlarna]

Source details and larger version.

Very unusual mail carriers through time.

[dalyankiz1981]

Happy one year anniversary to the James Kirchick Airmail interview where Armie finally broke his almost two year silence to tell his truth 👏 😍

[kazsartcorner]

rotates you violently in all three axes of movement

can i know more Airmail lore and funnies

Callsign: Airmail (Real name, written down somewhere in the records but nobody can find it) is one of the many mercenaries working for Circetalia Freelance. Through various methods, Airmail manages to boast a minimum of a 100% casulty rate for all their solo ops. But every time they're shot, melted, disintegrated, crushed, maimed or otherwise killed, a new one will simply airdrop in. Same old looking chemical suit, same stare, same height. The thing is, nobody is sure if Airmail is a set of flash clones, someone who has achived resurrective immortality, RA's chew toy, an army of people really committed to the bit or something else entirely. Airmail refuses to comment.

Airmail's Mech "Statistical Normality" is an unknown make, although it is far below GMS standards of quality and is often plagued with malfunctions that often lead to Airmail's death, be it the parachute failing to deploy, the reactor shielding cracking and microwaving them, or a coolant pipe bursting open and nailing them in the skull. Both Airmail's rifle and the beam gun carried by "Statistical Normality" are made of stamped steel and Bakelite furniture. They're cheap simple weapons that have proven remarkably easy to maintain. When not working Airmail can typically be found standing around ominously. Thank you for the question!

[felicitypdf]

"Feelings of inferiority in another sense, as well: Didion was what Dunne only pretended to be. “I was staying with Joan and John,” said Wakefield. “This was a couple of years before I moved to L.A.—in 1967, I think. They were both writing for The Saturday Evening Post. Things were going well, and they bought a new car, a Corvette Stingray. They’d just drove it home, right off the lot, and then they heard that The Saturday Evening Post was canceling their column, or maybe that the whole magazine was folding—I forget which—and John said, ‘Oh, God, maybe we should take back the car.’ Joan looked at him and said, ‘Don’t think poor.’” So, it was soft-spoken, bird-boned Didion, not hotheaded, chest-thumping Dunne, who was the real pro and little toughie."

Lili Anolik, True Confessions?

[silvyysthings]

1 year

[itsfullofstars]

[belovedapollo]

a new week ✉️ reblog is ok, don’t repost/use

[sovietpostcards]

Mail sorter of the Moscow International Post Office L. Vasyushkina at work with incoming correspondence. Photo by Yakov Berliner (1963).

[tofuart]

It’s an Aerogram!

Do you remember aerograms?  Aerograms were a single sheet of paper with gummed edges that had to be folded and sealed.   No enclosures were permitted, and you could not even use tape to seal them.  The cost was less than sending an airmail letter.   

In 1985, aerograms came franked with 36¢ postage.  It cost more than sending a postcard via airmail (33¢) but less than an airmail letter (44¢). The cost difference today seems quite insignificant even considering it was nearly 40 years ago.  But when you’re a student, you’ll always do something to save a few cents. 

You could fill the aerogram with as much writing as you could fit — write small or better yet, use a typewriter.  The rule was you just couldn’t put anything inside an aerogram. 

In the 1990s, as more people started having access to email, the aerogram was destined to become obsolete.  The U.S. Postal Service discontinued them in 2006.  In Britain they lasted until 2012. Very few countries offer them anymore. Australia still has them for sale.  At a recent San Francisco Correspondence Co-op meeting I found these unused aerograms on the swap table. I knew I had to take them to do a series of mail art. I wonder if some of my recipients will even know what aerograms are.

[artbybuckweiser]

L'Aviateur For Kahas

[vintagepromotions]

'Air France - airmail parcels just as fast as a letter by plane'

Air France poster advertising airmail services (1958). Artwork by Jean Colin.