“The Graf Zeppelin is considered the finest airship ever built; it flew more miles than any airship had done to that time or would in the future. Its first flight was on September 18, 1928. In August 1929, it circled the globe. Its flight began with a trip from Friedrichshaften, Germany, to Lakehurst, New Jersey . . . the craft stopped only at Tokyo, Japan and Los Angeles, California. The trip took 12 days—less time than the ocean trip from Tokyo to San Francisco.

“During the 10 years the Graf Zeppelin flew, it made 590 flights including 144 ocean crossings. It flew more than one million miles; visited the United States, the Arctic, the Middle East, and South America; and carried 13,110 passengers.” {Website: U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission: History of Flight: The Zeppelin}

“MAGNIFICENT WORLD CLASS GEM IN THE ULTIMATE GRADE OF GEM-100. Perfectly centered amid extremely large margins. Glowing rich color and sharp clear impression. A perfect World Class example for the collector building the FINEST set of Zeppelins one GEM-100 at a time. A surprisingly difficult stamp to obtain in the ultimate grade of GEM-100.”{Jay Parrino’s The Mint auction lot description}

“A magnificent Gem copy mathematically precisely centered amid huge margins, brilliant intense color and proof-like impression on bright white paper, Post Office fresh. A connoisseur’s stamp. Gem, PSE encapsulated and graded."{Michael I. Casper Rare Stamps auction lot description}

It is not surprising at all to me this stamp is difficult to obtain in a GEM 100. There were 93,536 stamps sold at the 65¢ face value. As of June 2011, PSE has graded, in all C13 conditions, a total of 1,002; that is to say, 1.07%.

As for that collector building the finest set of Zeppelins. . . , it won’t be me. Instead, I’m building a complete PSE Registry Set of First Airmail Issues (C1-C6) : one Gem 100 at a time.

June 2011