1954 Makalu Expedition Mail

Expedition Mail of the Himalaya

A Philatelic Story of the 1921 - 1953 Mail
Appendix B

Although these expeditions would not be part of my book since they took place after 1953, from an information capture perspective I will include them in this website. I will also only provide examples of the covers, not the detailed information about each documented cover as I did for the pre-WWII Mt. Everest covers.

Cheers,
Eddie

Appendix B - Table 5a (DRAFT)

A Sample of the 1954 California Himalaya Expedition to Makalu Mail

Table B-5a - The 1954 California Himalaya Expedition to Makalu

The expedition left the U.S. with hopes of becoming the first to reach the summit of Makalu. This was the 1st attempt to scale the peak.

With tight funding, Dr. Swan, both a serious mountaineer and avid stamp collector, remembered the success of the 1924 Everest Expedition label. However, while several images of Mt. Everest were available, there were none that gave a clear view of Makalu. Dr. Swan finally found an image that captured Makalu from a photo of the Mt. Everest range taken during the 1933 Houston Mt. Everest Flight. Dr. Swan used the image and a little artistic license to create the expedition label.

The expedition employed 3 markings on the mail. The first was a double-double circle. The straight line BARUN GLACIER BASE CAMP marking was applied to mail processed at the expedition base camp post office. There was also a straight line CARRIED BY RUNNER marking that has only been identified on the general expedition mail.

The labels.
The Markings. Applied in both black and red.

Expedition Mail. General covers from the expedition bearing one of the labels are very rare and scarce. The cover shown here is the only cover I have been able to document at this time. According to Dr. Swan, the expedition members used the label on their personal mail to include Sherpa Sonam Gompu on a letter to his uncle, Tenzing Norgay.	Courtesy of the Hackstaff collection
The Souvenir Covers In the end, 280 souvenir covers were sent with the red label. 205 souvenir covers were sent with the blue label. And only 30 souvenir covers were sent with the green label.	Courtesy of the Hackstaff collection