neat Bob Feller item - 1938 National Air Mail Week Envelope and Stamp

[JLange]

I found this neat item on eBay and was thrilled when I actually got it. The envelope was marked with a Bob Feller stamp from Van Meter, IA and was intended to be used during "National Air Mail Week." I did a little digging and found the following online about this campaign:

"National Air Mail Week: To promote air mail service, a nation-wide public relations campaign was launched by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Postmaster-General James A Farley. It was called National Air Mail Week. It took place during the week of May 15-21, 1938.

Each citizen was encouraged to mail or receive an airmail letter during the week-long celebration. Postal employees, postal organizations, civic and municipal authorities, radio stations, newspapers and citizens cooperated to make this a successful event.

Thousands of cities across the US (48 States) and most US Territories became involved with their own local air mail activities. Close to 10,000 individual city cachets were prepared, giving each locality a chance to boast about what made their locality proud, special and important."
http://www.aerodacious.com/NAMW.HTM

So Van Meter, IA naturally chose her favorite son for this event!

When I went looking for more details about my new item, I found a reference in Feller's own 1990 autobigraphy Now Pitching, Bob Feller, page 76:

"That win at Yankee Stadium was followed immediately by some-
thing new back in Van Meter - a postage cancellation stamp that read:

VAN METER, IOWA

Bob Feller's Hometown

It even had my picture and two other lines that said it was "National
Air Mail Week, May 15-21, 1938"

Looks like somebody bought this envelope but never used it.

Seeing as how there were nearly 10,000 different covers prepared from all across the country for this event, there's bound to be other interesting ones out there, possibly other baseball related ones. If anyone has other covers, I'd love to see them!

[Rob D.]

Congrats on a nice pickup. There are so many obscure-but-cool items related to Feller. This is certainly one of them.

[Scott Garner]

Very nice, Jason!