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Ad Rates / Articles / Classified Ads / Editorial / Home / Links / Showtime   Pan American Clippers gone, but very collectible    List Jim Trautman Next   Pan American Clippers - An Aviation Disappearing Act By Jim Trautman The high-flying Pan American Clippers of the 1930s and 1940s are now extinct - a world-famous aircraft nowhere to be found, not even in aviation museums.   Not one of the 28 Pan American Clipper "flying boats" has survived. Destroyed, salvaged, scrapped, each has passed on into the mists of history.   Juan Trippe, founder of Pan American Airways, named the aircraft and Pan American continued the tradition for the remainder of the company's history.   The names - Philippine Clipper, Hong Kong Clipper, Hawaii Clipper, Dixie Clipper, Yankee Clipper etc. - were painted on the front of each aircraft, part of the marketing strategy to sell tickets.   And tickets they sold.   The 1930s saw a world emerging from the Great Depression and the Pan American Airways Clipper symbolized elegance, luxury, adventure and romance.   Trippe, whose family made their fortune in the Clipper sailing ships to the Orient in the 1800s, would employ Clipper aircraft to circle the globe.   Canada has a rich tradition and connection to the famous "flying boats." As part of their North Atlantic shipping route, the Clippers stopped at Shediac, New Brunswick, and Botwood, Newfoundland. In fact, 70 years ago, on July 9, 1939, the first Clipper flight across the North Atlantic followed that same route.   The flying Clippers would play a key role in the evolution of transoceanic flight, setting time and distance records across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, providing airmail delivery between counties and eventually serving the Allies as troop and cargo transports throughout World War II.   In January 1943, a Clipper carried U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt on his secret mission to meet British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at Casablanca. Churchill was a regular passenger on the Clipper. One famous photograph is of Churchill sitting at the controls smoking his famous large cigar. The only item missing was a brandy glass in the other hand.   The Pan American Clippers created a fantastic amount of material for collectors. A large amount of crossover material to the movies, cigarette cards, picture cards, advertising, posters and, of course, aviation material is available.   From the early days of Hollywood, there was a love of anything connected to aviation. When the famous China Clippers appeared, it did not take Hollywood long to realize the public loved the romance of the Clippers.   In 1933, the movie Flying Down to Rio, starring Dolores Del Rio, Gene Raymond and pairing, for the first time, Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, hit the silver screen. The movie poster featured showgirls dancing on the wing of an S-40 Clipper. The movie trailer screamed; "musical romance staged in the clouds, too big for the world so they staged it in the clouds, too beautiful for words, so they set it to music."     In 1936, Humphrey Bogart and Pat O'Brien starred in China Clipper. A one-sheet movie poster (27" x 41") is very difficult to find in any condition. If found, expect to pay several thousand. A beautiful, one-sheet linen poster was made for the Swedish version of the movie. It is valued at $1,000.   In 1939, the famous Charlie Chan murder mysteries featured Charlie Chan at Treasure Island. The film opens with Detective Charlie Chan and his son flying over the Pan American airfield on Treasure Island, San Francisco, in a Clipper.   If one visits Treasure Island today, the original Pan Am hangars, the Art Deco administration building, with its blue control tower on top, still remain. The surrounding water is called Clipper Cove and for a picnic, sit at the benches in Clipper Park.   Part of the Pan American collectibles crossover is connected to the Golden Gate International Exposition, which ran on Treasure Island from 1939-40.   As World War II approached and when the conflict was raging, Pan American ads featured patriotic themes. A 1943 Camel cigarette ad features Pan Am Clipper Captain Joseph H. Hart proudly announcing that "they've got what it takes: 12 times across the ocean in 13 days!"   Sylvania Electric Products ran a colour ad: "Midget Lightships to Guide Giant Clippers Home!" A large full-page ad in Life magazine was partly a Pan Am advertisement and a patriotic ad for the U.S. Navy. The collectible ad features the Pacific routes of the Clippers - Honolulu, Midway Island, Wake Island, Guam, Philippines. At the bottom of the ad is an American sailor looking up at the passing aircraft.   A large Clipper appears with the headline: "American Outposts of Security and Defence." It is a fantastic ephemera crossover with appeal to aviation and World War II collectors.   Check old magazines of the period and every company seemed to run ads to connect their product to the Clippers. For British and Canadian cigarette card collectors, John Player & Sons issued a beautiful 50-card set of aviation picture cards in their product. Several contain images of the Clipper and the interior of the aircraft.   An extra treat was to order the album for a few pennies, which contained information on each of the 50 featured cards. Cards sell in the $3-$5 range depending on the aircraft pictured and condition. The album is $50.   The beautiful colour travel posters can be found at auction houses from time to time. The famous Swann Galleries of New York City have regular auctions of early aviation travel posters. The famous Pan American travel posters of the period, featuring the Clippers by such artists as Frank Mackintosh and Paul George Lawlor, can sell for $6,000 to $9,000 each.   One of the most expensive, by Mackintosh and entitled "Hawaii Overnight," screams of luxury, wealth, romance and warm, sunny climates. Created in 1938, it sells in the $9,000 range.   For the average collector, there are hundreds of images on inexpensive colour postcards of the period. The Clipper over the Golden Gate Bridge; the terminal in Miami (which today is Miami City Hall in Coconut Grove, restored to look as the Pan Am terminal of the 1930's). The famous large globe of the terminal now resides in the Miami Museum of Science in the front hall.   Other collectible ephemera are the newsletters issued by the various branches of the airline, a wealth of information on the famous coming and going of flights, filled with photos of the time.   How about a beer can from the Grace Brothers Brewery of Santa Rosa, California? For a brief time in the 1930s, the company marketed Clipper Pale Ale. The metal can featured a China Clipper aircraft in flight. Due to the short brew run and the rust factor, a can recently sold at auction for several thousand.   The world of Clipper collecting is basically limitless: cereal giveaways, toys, photos, old movie newsreels (old movie footage of anything of the period is becoming a new collecting area), newspapers, the hundreds of booklets that Pan Am issued for commercial purposes, china, table cloths and of course the uniforms.   A rare object is the pottery luggage tag, which was attached to each passengers bag. The fragile tags are difficult to find in any condition, as is the certificate each passenger received for a flight across the Equator. It included the passenger's name, date of the crossing, weather, and altitude, signed by the pilot and embossed with the gold seal of the airline. I found one in a small shop in Alton, Ontario, several years ago.   Passengers were given miniature autograph books on entering the aircraft to get the autographs of the crew on the flight. Two of the most valuable autographs would be those of Captain Edwin Musick, Pan Am's chief pilot, and Fred Noonan. Both disappeared over the Pacific, Noonan with Amelia Earhart.   For additional information on Pan American Airways Clippers, the July/August issue of Canadian Aviator features a story on the Shediac/Botwood connection, and Pan American Clippers: The Golden Age of Flying Boats, published by Boston Mills Press/Firefly, is a history of that period.   For those interested there will be large celebrations in November 2010 at Treasure Island, San Francisco, to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the first China Clipper flight across the Pacific.   Jim Trautman can be reached at trautman@sentex.net or 519-855-6077, RR1 Orton, Ontario, L0N 1N0 Return to top of page   This Is Livin' Publishing © 2010 581 8th Line West, RR1 Hastings, ON, K0L 1Y0 Phone/Fax: 705-696-1833   webmaster