An Homage to Airline Collectibles
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Boston
Posts: 467
An Homage to Airline Collectibles
The latest post at ASK THE PILOT is called "Homage to the Ticket Wallet: Postcards, Timetables, and Other Airline Collectibles. If Only I Hadn't Thrown Them All Away."
YOU KNOW WHAT I MISS? Airline ticket wallets. Once upon a time airline tickets were issued by hand, and were often several pages thick, while boarding passes came in the form of cardstock keepsakes. When you checked in at the airport, the agent would arrange your documents in a paper or cardboard wallet -- sometimes they called it a "ticket jacket" -- usually emblazoned with the carrier's colors, and hand it back to you. Have a nice flight, sir.
It was a helpful way of organizing it all. Today's electronically issued tickets are mere receipts that can be folded into a pocket, and the boarding pass has become a similarly flimsy scrap, rendering the jackets all but obsolete. I'm not sure how much money this saves, since they couldn't cost more than a fraction of a penny to manufacture, but if nothing else I guess it saves a few trees. When I was a kid I had a pretty good collection of ticket jackets from airlines around the world.
I had a big timetable collection too, and those are another thing I miss. Three or four times a year airlines would publish thick booklets containing their entire network schedule -- arrival times, departure times, aircraft types, etc. -- plus a wealth of other information. There were seating diagrams, addresses and contact info, and, my favorite, the fold-out route map. The booklets were convenient for frequent flyers and they also made neat collectibles.
For the most part timetables have been relegated to virtual status on airline websites. Hard copy versions haven't totally disappeared, but you need to look overseas to find the few that are still out there. I'm not sure who still prints them. The newest one I own is about ten years old. Curiously, looking at the various carriers' current online versions is something of a sentimental journey, as the basic format has hardly changed. Several of the major carriers' online timetables are laid out exactly like the printed versions 25 years ago, with the identical fonts and typefaces.
Airline collectibles. I wonder sometimes how much my old archive would be worth, if only it still existed. Inside an old gray metal footlocker once resided a good fifty pounds of airline memorabilia that my friends and I had stockpiled during our weekend forays to Logan Airport in the mid and late 1970s. We'd rummage through kiosks and weasel our way onto parked jetliners, an virtually anything wearing an airline logo was snagged and hoarded: timetables, booklets, luggage stickers and tags, silverware, pins, inflight magazines, barf bags, playing cards.
We'd also write to airline offices the world over. "Dear South African Airways, could you please send us some timetables, pictures of your aircraft or other items for our collection." Amazingly effective, this was. A few weeks later a fat manila packet would arrive jammed with posters, pictures, promotional brochures, you name it.
All gone. Gone because, for reasons that I can't today fathom, I threw it all away.
I was 18 or 19 when I did it. The locker, a gray aluminum chest the size of a large suitcase, still sits in the attic of my parents' house in Revere, Massachusetts. It's covered with luggage stickers from Braniff, Eastern, Piedmont and North Central. It goes BOOONG! when you bang on it. Because it's empty. The bottomless echo of a teenager making another bad decision.
The only things I hung onto were a small handful of timetables, and a sizable library of airliner postcards, which I still actively curate. Their portability, if nothing else, inspired me to save them. Postcards, yes: years ago airlines would publish and distributed postcards showcasing photographs or drawings of their aircraft. Photo on the front; blank space for writing and postage stamp square on the back. I've got about 500 in all, from Aeroflot to Air Zimbabwe, some of which, according to eBay and people who sell and trade such things, are worth $20 or $30 apiece.
I’ve got an Avianca card of a 747 on its first trip to Medellin, Colombia, marked “Historica fotograica,” and a Laker Airways DC-10 that includes a little balloon picture Sir Freddie himself, his smile beaming skyward and his autograph reproduced across the bottom. Another one is a watercolor painting of the Brussels Airport, put out by the old Belgian carrier Sabena.
Several of my cards are renderings done in watercolor, oil or acrylics. One of them is an Aeroflot Tu-114 done in charcoal and pencil. Where did such wonderful things come from exactly? Were they commissioned? Was somebody -- a department -- actually paid to make them?
Some airlines were astoundingly prolific with their postcards. Lufthansa produced hundreds of them. The U.S. majors too. My favorites are the 1960s and 1970s-era cards: the 707s, DC-8s, Caravelles and 747SPs; the old Soviet Tupolevs and Ilyushins. I especially savor the tarmac shots where the jets are surrounded by activity: workers and tug-tractors and baggage vehicles all stirring about. I love the action and drama these scenes suggest, all of the logistical and human effort that goes into getting a plane off the ground. They're vastly more interesting than the dime-a-dozen shots of a plane aloft, nose-to-tail against a sunset or a bank of clouds.
Artistically speaking, the Eastern Europeans seem to have put the most thinking into their cards. My collections spans dozens of airlines across six continents, but it's those from the old Soviet Bloc that are the most nuanced and creatively designed. Maybe this was a minor form of Cold War propaganda, the Eastern carriers outdoing their Western rivals in one of the only ways they knew how. Check out my examples from Romanian carrier Tarom, and the former East German airline Interflug; the Tupolev's underbelly in black-and-white, when it didn't need to be.
You won't find many airline pilots who collect such things, or even know they exist. Most pilots aren't into airlines per se, and in fact know relatively little about them. But to me these picture cards are poignant historical markers. Not just the airline industry's history, but my own. They are like slices of my adolescence. They take me back to junior high school, to those years when my airline nerdity really hit its peak. A few are even postmarked, with decades-old messages across the back.
A handful of airlines still do postcards. I was excited, last spring, taking a TAP (Air Portugal) flight from Heathrow to Lisbon, to discover a display of cards for the taking in a holster mounted on one of the cabin bulkheads, each with a picture of an Airbus A320. I grabbed one. Actually I grabbed two.
----------
The version of this story at <redacted by moderator> is slightly longer and includes photographs of all of the aforementioned postcards and timetables, plus others. Drop by and check them out.
Meanwhile, I'd love to hear from any FT readers who might have postcards they'd be willing to sell or trade.
Thanks for reading and enjoy the pictures...
<redacted by moderator>
-- Patrick Smith
YOU KNOW WHAT I MISS? Airline ticket wallets. Once upon a time airline tickets were issued by hand, and were often several pages thick, while boarding passes came in the form of cardstock keepsakes. When you checked in at the airport, the agent would arrange your documents in a paper or cardboard wallet -- sometimes they called it a "ticket jacket" -- usually emblazoned with the carrier's colors, and hand it back to you. Have a nice flight, sir.
It was a helpful way of organizing it all. Today's electronically issued tickets are mere receipts that can be folded into a pocket, and the boarding pass has become a similarly flimsy scrap, rendering the jackets all but obsolete. I'm not sure how much money this saves, since they couldn't cost more than a fraction of a penny to manufacture, but if nothing else I guess it saves a few trees. When I was a kid I had a pretty good collection of ticket jackets from airlines around the world.
I had a big timetable collection too, and those are another thing I miss. Three or four times a year airlines would publish thick booklets containing their entire network schedule -- arrival times, departure times, aircraft types, etc. -- plus a wealth of other information. There were seating diagrams, addresses and contact info, and, my favorite, the fold-out route map. The booklets were convenient for frequent flyers and they also made neat collectibles.
For the most part timetables have been relegated to virtual status on airline websites. Hard copy versions haven't totally disappeared, but you need to look overseas to find the few that are still out there. I'm not sure who still prints them. The newest one I own is about ten years old. Curiously, looking at the various carriers' current online versions is something of a sentimental journey, as the basic format has hardly changed. Several of the major carriers' online timetables are laid out exactly like the printed versions 25 years ago, with the identical fonts and typefaces.
Airline collectibles. I wonder sometimes how much my old archive would be worth, if only it still existed. Inside an old gray metal footlocker once resided a good fifty pounds of airline memorabilia that my friends and I had stockpiled during our weekend forays to Logan Airport in the mid and late 1970s. We'd rummage through kiosks and weasel our way onto parked jetliners, an virtually anything wearing an airline logo was snagged and hoarded: timetables, booklets, luggage stickers and tags, silverware, pins, inflight magazines, barf bags, playing cards.
We'd also write to airline offices the world over. "Dear South African Airways, could you please send us some timetables, pictures of your aircraft or other items for our collection." Amazingly effective, this was. A few weeks later a fat manila packet would arrive jammed with posters, pictures, promotional brochures, you name it.
All gone. Gone because, for reasons that I can't today fathom, I threw it all away.
I was 18 or 19 when I did it. The locker, a gray aluminum chest the size of a large suitcase, still sits in the attic of my parents' house in Revere, Massachusetts. It's covered with luggage stickers from Braniff, Eastern, Piedmont and North Central. It goes BOOONG! when you bang on it. Because it's empty. The bottomless echo of a teenager making another bad decision.
The only things I hung onto were a small handful of timetables, and a sizable library of airliner postcards, which I still actively curate. Their portability, if nothing else, inspired me to save them. Postcards, yes: years ago airlines would publish and distributed postcards showcasing photographs or drawings of their aircraft. Photo on the front; blank space for writing and postage stamp square on the back. I've got about 500 in all, from Aeroflot to Air Zimbabwe, some of which, according to eBay and people who sell and trade such things, are worth $20 or $30 apiece.
I’ve got an Avianca card of a 747 on its first trip to Medellin, Colombia, marked “Historica fotograica,” and a Laker Airways DC-10 that includes a little balloon picture Sir Freddie himself, his smile beaming skyward and his autograph reproduced across the bottom. Another one is a watercolor painting of the Brussels Airport, put out by the old Belgian carrier Sabena.
Several of my cards are renderings done in watercolor, oil or acrylics. One of them is an Aeroflot Tu-114 done in charcoal and pencil. Where did such wonderful things come from exactly? Were they commissioned? Was somebody -- a department -- actually paid to make them?
Some airlines were astoundingly prolific with their postcards. Lufthansa produced hundreds of them. The U.S. majors too. My favorites are the 1960s and 1970s-era cards: the 707s, DC-8s, Caravelles and 747SPs; the old Soviet Tupolevs and Ilyushins. I especially savor the tarmac shots where the jets are surrounded by activity: workers and tug-tractors and baggage vehicles all stirring about. I love the action and drama these scenes suggest, all of the logistical and human effort that goes into getting a plane off the ground. They're vastly more interesting than the dime-a-dozen shots of a plane aloft, nose-to-tail against a sunset or a bank of clouds.
Artistically speaking, the Eastern Europeans seem to have put the most thinking into their cards. My collections spans dozens of airlines across six continents, but it's those from the old Soviet Bloc that are the most nuanced and creatively designed. Maybe this was a minor form of Cold War propaganda, the Eastern carriers outdoing their Western rivals in one of the only ways they knew how. Check out my examples from Romanian carrier Tarom, and the former East German airline Interflug; the Tupolev's underbelly in black-and-white, when it didn't need to be.
You won't find many airline pilots who collect such things, or even know they exist. Most pilots aren't into airlines per se, and in fact know relatively little about them. But to me these picture cards are poignant historical markers. Not just the airline industry's history, but my own. They are like slices of my adolescence. They take me back to junior high school, to those years when my airline nerdity really hit its peak. A few are even postmarked, with decades-old messages across the back.
A handful of airlines still do postcards. I was excited, last spring, taking a TAP (Air Portugal) flight from Heathrow to Lisbon, to discover a display of cards for the taking in a holster mounted on one of the cabin bulkheads, each with a picture of an Airbus A320. I grabbed one. Actually I grabbed two.
----------
The version of this story at <redacted by moderator> is slightly longer and includes photographs of all of the aforementioned postcards and timetables, plus others. Drop by and check them out.
Meanwhile, I'd love to hear from any FT readers who might have postcards they'd be willing to sell or trade.
Thanks for reading and enjoy the pictures...
<redacted by moderator>
-- Patrick Smith
Last edited by JY1024; Mar 22, 2015 at 10:11 pm Reason: http://www.flyertalk.com/help/rules.php#externallinks
#2
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: SEA (the REAL Washington); occasionally in the other Washington (DCA area)
Programs: DL PM 1.57MM; AS MVPG 100K
Posts: 21,356
I have ticket jackets from 800+ commercial airline trips since late 1971, with one or more aircraft registrations written on each (a total of approximately 2000 flights) ... I confess to scarfing up handsful of envelopes from unstaffed CO, UA, and DL gates in the 2006-2009 timeframe as the airlines were eliminating the use of these items, and I've taken to writing as many as four tail numbers on a single envelope
in the past couple years I have acquired a couple dozen "Our Apologies" DL envelopes which are proving to be an adequate substitute
in the past couple years I have acquired a couple dozen "Our Apologies" DL envelopes which are proving to be an adequate substitute
#7
Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: LAS/SIN
Programs: TK E+, AS Gold
Posts: 67
Safety cards.
Don't remember how I started, but eight years on, 305 unique cards from 60 countries and 103 airlines does strike up some interesting conversations. Some of my favorites: Air Koryo IL-62, Cubana Yak-42, LAB & Aerosur 727, Turkmenistan 717.
Don't remember how I started, but eight years on, 305 unique cards from 60 countries and 103 airlines does strike up some interesting conversations. Some of my favorites: Air Koryo IL-62, Cubana Yak-42, LAB & Aerosur 727, Turkmenistan 717.
#8
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: SEA (the REAL Washington); occasionally in the other Washington (DCA area)
Programs: DL PM 1.57MM; AS MVPG 100K
Posts: 21,356
don't most of those have a "DO NOT REMOVE FROM THE AIRCRAFT" notation?
full disclosure: I think I swiped a few in the late 1970s ...
full disclosure: I think I swiped a few in the late 1970s ...
#9
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: VPS
Programs: IHG Diamond, Delta PM, Hilton Gold, Accor Gold, Marriott Silver
Posts: 7,255
If anyone has a thing for those old paper chain hotel directories, La Quinta was publishing a brief version for their properties as of 2013- last time I stayed at one and got mine. They might still be putting out new ones.
#10
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: East Ester, Alaska
Programs: Alaska Million Miler, United Million Miler, Wyndham Rewards Diamond, Choice Hotels Diamond
Posts: 12,145
I still collect airline postcards, though I'm a lot more judicious than I used to be. That said, earlier this summer I sent off $430.00 USD to a broker in Portugal for 597 cards. So the flame still burns...
I'll be flying down for the Southern California Airline Collectibles Show in Long Beach on January 24th. Perhaps you'll see me at the show. I'll be the one with the misshapen hump and antlers looking for airline menus.
I'll be flying down for the Southern California Airline Collectibles Show in Long Beach on January 24th. Perhaps you'll see me at the show. I'll be the one with the misshapen hump and antlers looking for airline menus.
Last edited by Seat 2A; Dec 1, 2014 at 12:42 am
#11
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: SEA (the REAL Washington); occasionally in the other Washington (DCA area)
Programs: DL PM 1.57MM; AS MVPG 100K
Posts: 21,356
...
I'll be flying down for the Southern California Airline Collectibles Show in Long Beach on January 24th. If OP Patrick or anyone else here wants to get together for drinks and/or dinner the night before, perhaps we could arrange something... Maybe even a "DO".
I'll be flying down for the Southern California Airline Collectibles Show in Long Beach on January 24th. If OP Patrick or anyone else here wants to get together for drinks and/or dinner the night before, perhaps we could arrange something... Maybe even a "DO".
the INCOSE International Workshop is 24-28 Jan in Torrance ... I know there's no way I'll be able to get my boss to underwrite my airline ticket and hotel/car, but I'm going to try to persuade him that it would nevertheless be valuable for me to attend (as long as I have a labor charge line, I won't have to burn vacation hours)
stay tuned ...
Last edited by jrl767; Nov 25, 2014 at 7:09 am Reason: INCOSE = International Council on Systems Engineering
#12
Suspended
Join Date: Oct 2014
Posts: 472
I have a 6-8" thick stack of used ticket jackets and maybe 10 different unused ones. These are all 20 years old.
Now I bring an envelope to keep the boarding passes.
I used to have a log but a computer virus took over the computer. Someday, I will try to reclaim the computer. The virus blanks out the screen but there is a way to recover control. I think it was some fake Windows Defender virus that takes over screen control and makes info invisible on the screen. That log has all the flights that I took for about 10 years.
Now I bring an envelope to keep the boarding passes.
I used to have a log but a computer virus took over the computer. Someday, I will try to reclaim the computer. The virus blanks out the screen but there is a way to recover control. I think it was some fake Windows Defender virus that takes over screen control and makes info invisible on the screen. That log has all the flights that I took for about 10 years.