Description:

Charles A. Lindbergh
n.p., ca. January 1929
Amazing Oversize Charles Lindbergh Photo, Signed to the Wife of Curtiss-Wright Founder!
Signed photograph
A super inscribed signed photograph of Lindbergh, measuring 8.5" x 10.75" matte sepia, [n.p.], January, 1929. Lindbergh signs at lower left: "To Mrs. C. M. Keys Sincerely Charles Lindbergh January, 1929." Mounted. Exhibits the slightest indications of wear at edges, otherwise near fine.

Clement Melville Keys (1876-1952) was the President of Curtiss Aeroplane and Motors Company and a major financier of aviation innovations after World War I. In 1928, Keys with a group of like-minded businessmen and Lindbergh himself, who had been wooed into the project in a complicated stock-sharing deal, set out to create the Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT), a combined air-and-rail service going from New York to Los Angeles in just forty-eight hours with stops at Columbus, Waynoka (OK), Clovis (NM), onward to Glendale, CA. It was officially dubbed "The Lindbergh Line," and promised the well-off not only luxury and speed, but also the excitement that the very name "Lindbergh" inspired. Travelers who opted to try out the new mode of air-travel would sleep in lavish, personally-attended Pullman cars on trains by night, and fly on TAT's prestigious but somewhat uncomfortable Ford Tri-Motor planes by day.

Lindbergh charted the route, directed the choice of aircraft, chose landing fields, as well as other technical responsibilities. On July 7, 1929, the inaugural Pennsylvania Railroad train left New York City with passengers bound for Columbus, Ohio. There, on July 8, they transferred to TAT. Several more stops were made before arriving at Waynoka, where passengers boarded the Santa Fe train for Clovis. From Clovis on July 9 they flew on TAT into Los Angeles.

However interesting an idea this new mode of transport was, public reception to the costly voyage was poor. Cynics even dubbed Transcontinental Air Transport "Take a Train." The operation lost more than $2.7 million in the eighteen months of operations. In October 1930 the air service merged with Western Air Express to become Transcontinental and Western Airlines (TWA).

Charles A. Lindbergh (1902-1974) made the first non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean in the Spirit of St. Louis from Long Island, New York, to Le Bourget, near Paris, on May 20–21, 1927. His flight was sponsored by a group of businessmen in St. Louis, Missouri, and named his single-seat, single-engine monoplane "Spirit of St. Louis" in honor of his supporters from the St. Louis Racquet Club in his then-hometown of St. Louis. Lindbergh, then a 25-year-old U.S. Air Mail pilot, emerged from virtual obscurity to almost instantaneous world fame as the result of his flight, a distance of nearly 3,600 statute miles. A U.S. Army reserve officer, "Lindy" was also awarded the nation's highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his aviation exploits.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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  • Dimensions: 8.5" x 10.75"
  • Medium: Signed photograph

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October 30, 2024 10:00 AM EDT
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