Original. Most Rare, A1929 Zeppelin Orientfahrt Over Egypt. The Zeppelin's Oriental Flight Over The Pyramids & Sphinx'. An Awarded Table Medal In Solid, Fine Silver. Len Deighton, World Renown Thriller & Spy Novelist Wrote a Book on The Very Flight

Only the second we have had or seen in 25 years. the only other we have seen is in the Landesmuseum in Wurttemberg.

Of all the medals issued in Europe for the very significant aeronautical occasions involving balloons and airships, this is one of the most artistically beautiful, capturing the flight over the great pyramids spectacularly in the typical Art Deco style. Just regard the amazing font, simple elegant but unique to that brief period. It was just a few short years since Carter had discovered the finest and fabulous golden treasures ever excavated in the history of the world, from the tomb of the boy king, the Pharoah Tutankhamen, and just three years before the great Boris Karloff starred in the iconic Hollywood movie, The Mummy.
Egypt and the art it inspired was all the rage around the world, in the news, art, film and decor, and this is just a fabulous representation of that amazing period.

This is a very rare and valuable medal, in super condition, made in fine silver, awarded and issued in 1929, for Dr. Hugo Eckener, depicting the Orientfahrt Orient flight of the airship Graf Zeppelin in 1929 Another rare surviving example of this fine medal is in the Landesmuseum in Wurttemberg.

In Britain it is regarded that a medal is only a wearable decoration, worn using either a chest ribbon, neck ribbon, or sash, or with a rear mounted uniform dress mounting pin, but in Europe, a medal is more often than not a display piece, issued for the same reasons as a wearable medal, for individuals as a reward, for commemoration or celebration, but not for personal adornment. Either displayed in a table mounted glass case or free standing cabinet.

On 24/03/1929 - the LZ127 Graf Zeppelin Orient Flight was launched for the reintroduction of air flight post-office mail.
Len Deighton, world renown thriller and spy novelist, under his psuedonym Cyril Deighton, wrote a rare and desirable book on this very flight, due to his love of airships and philately.

The Orientfahrt is distinguished for being one of the most controversial - in purely philatelic terms - of the Graf Zeppelin's history, mostly because there are no detailed sources of the flight that are completely reliable. The book records in great detail the flight from Germany which was like a theatrical event, where dinner was served over the Dead Sea and breakfast would be over the Acropolis; the ship subsequently flew over Rome, Naples and Cyprus.
Dropping mail at Jaffa, Athens, Budapest, Vienna
And flew over Palestine and Egypt.

Dr Eckner Born in Flensburg in 1868. Hugo Eckener came into contact with Count Zeppelin as a correspondent for the Frankfurter Zeitung through one of his reports on the Zeppelin airship. This resulted in a long-term cooperation. At the end of the 1890s, Eckener moved from Flensburg to Friedrichhafen and became tour leader and authorized representative of the German Airship Company (DELAG), founded in 1909. After the death of Count Zeppelin, Eckener awoke the interest in airships through the Atlantic crossing of the Zeppelin 126 and the world tour of LZ 127 in the 1920s. Between 1931 and 1937 a regular transatlantic regular service between Frankfurt, the USA and Brazil with the two Zeppelinen 127 and 129 was furnished.

The front of the medal from 1929 shows the bust of Eckener to the left. The back shows an airship over the sphinx and pyramids, behind the rising sun. See in reference to this medal; Hans Kaiser, 1998: medals, plaques, badges of German aviation. The coined chronicle of the German aviation, Gutersloh, S. 137 No. 494.1 &
Kienast, Gunter W., 1967: The medals of Karl Goetz, Cleveland, Ohio, S. II, 284 S.: No. op.428

Code: 22151