Mongolia 1981

In 1981 Mongolia issued a set of stamps to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the German LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin airship polar flight. The special feature of the set is Arctic fauna, with the inclusion of copies of stamps issued by Germany and the Soviet Union in 1931, the year of the polar flight. The 20/30/40-mung airmail stamps incorporate the Germany 1931 stamps. Within the 50/60/80-mung and 1.20 tugrik values are the Soviet stamps.

LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin was the most successful airship ever built, completing 590 flights covering a total of around a million miles carrying thousands of passengers without a single injury. It was built using funds raised by public subscription and from the German government, and part of its operating costs were offset by the sale of special postage stamps to collectors. 

Operating for nine years, Graf Zeppelin completed the first commercial passenger flight across the Atlantic and the first commercial passenger flight around the world. As celebrated on the stamps shown here, it flew a scientific mission over the North Pole in 1931 and made the first regularly-scheduled transatlantic passenger crossings by air. You can imagine the worldwide public fascination LZ-127 attracted during that period of history.

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Here we have quite rare overprinted 1931 Germany polar flight stamps.

Soviet Union 1931

Seen above are the Soviet Union stamps showing a polar bear, Graf Zeppelin and the Soviet icebreaker Malygin

Some of the information contained in this article comes courtesy of Dan Grossman and his fantastically informative Airships.net website, here’s a link https://www.airships.net/lz127-graf-zeppelin/

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