SCADTA Mail to and from Switzerland: Sociedad Colombo-Alemana de Transportes Aereos - Correo desde y hacia Suiza

This book reproduces every page of the Grand Award winning exhibit SCADTA Mail to and from Switzerland. The Colombian-German Air Transport Company (Spanish: Sociedad Colombo Alemana de Transportes Aéreos, German: Deutsch-Kolumbianische Luftverkehrsgesellschaft), or SCADTA, was the world's second airline, and the first airline in the Americas, operating from 1919 until World War IIIn 1919, the victorious Allies after World War I suffocated German aviation. With very few opportunities in Germany, German aviators looked elsewhere. Two young German aviators, pilot Fritz Hammer and engineer Wilhelm Schnurbusch, found their opportunity in Colombia. The SCADTA company was formed in 1919, with Colombian investors, and they ordered two Junkers F 13 planes, which arrived in 1920.The Colombian government cooperated with SCADTA and gave it an exclusive franchise, but not a contract for carrying mail. SCADTA had to collect fees for carrying mail on its own. SCADTA issued its own stamps, which had to be used in addition to regular stamps of the Colombian postal service. These stamps and their use to and from Switzerland are the main subject of this exhibit.Soon mailers in other countries learned of the speed-up in the mail service from Colombia, and wanted to use the SCADTA service too. So SCADTA had to figure out how to sell its stamps overseas. At that time, the international currency market was a mess. SCADTA did not want its stamps used in international currency speculation. So, it overprinted its stamps for use from different countries. It used “EU” (Estados Unidos) for mail from the United States, “F” from France, “A” (Alemana) from Germany, “S” from Switzerland, … The stamps were placed on sale in Colombian consulates in those countries, and thus are called “consular” stamps.In 1932, SCADTA finally got a contract from the Colombian government to carry mail. SCADTA stamps were no longer needed on mail, and were soon invalidated. The contract was apparently negotiated so quickly that Colombia did not have any airmail stamps ready. So, their first airmail stamps were overprinted SCADTA stamps, soon replaced by new designs.The exhibit continues tracing the mail from Colombia to Switzerland until 1940, then tells of the mail from Switzerland to Colombia. Read more