Airmail

In 1855, a letter mailed coast-to-coast takes a long and precarious overland route in a 4-horsepower coach, the driver struggling to control his team while the shotgun rider beats back the relentless marauding of bandits, desperados, and assorted other n'er-do-wells. Sending and receiving cross-country mail is not yet the kind of normalized activity that we take for granted. It is still very much a Big Deal. Look at how excited the townspeople in an average Western flick get when the noon stage arrives chock full of mail bags and parcels.

In 1955—a mere 100 years later— that same letter is whisked across the country, safely tucked aboard an enormous aluminum tube, cruising at 30,000 angels and comforted by the constant hum of 4 engines, each producing thousands of horsepower.

Tell that to the guys driving the stagecoach, and they'll think you're plum loco.

The third stamp is here not for the stamp itself, but for the "Airmail Saves Time" postmark. About halfway between the stagecoach and the Stratocruiser, we figured out that the airplane might be a useful way to deliver the mail; "Airmail Saves Time" indeed. The aeroplane pictured on the postmark is the stagecoach of aviation: a boxy collection of wood and fabric and more wings than motors. Fast forward only a few decades and you find the sleek silver machines with more horsepower under harness than could even be imagined in 1855.

And just think: today we look back at those same sleek silver machines with a sense of– nostalgia.