Air Mail Etiquettes

"Begun as a way to alert the postal authority that a piece of mail required specific handling, the air mail etiquette, like other postal labels, soon went beyond the utilitarian in design," writes Bonnie and Roger Riga on the Cinderellas.info website.

They go on to say, "Early examples were most often simple words on a colored background - many still are. Soon other refinements made their appearance. Colors, shapes, graphics all added to the variety and interest of these labels. Issued in sheets of stamps, booklet form, even enclosed in small matchbox-like containers, airmail etiquettes were in every home and office."

In 1947 a first catalog of etiquettes was published by Frank Muller; more recently the Postal Label Study Group has put out the Mair Airmail Label Catalog, a 627-page work illustrating 3,289 types of etiquettes.

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