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TWO ORIGINAL EARLY THIRD REICH CIGARETTE CARD COLLECTOR ALBUMS “CONQUEST OF THE SKY”

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DIE EROBERUNG DER LUFT TWO ALBUMS COMPLETE WITH ALL 438 FULL-COLOR CIGARETTE CARDS CAREFULLY GLUED IN BY THE ORIGINAL COLLECTOR 80+ YEARS AGO!

This lot consists of two rare German cigarette card albums called Die Eroberung der Luft and Die Eroberung der Luft II Folge: Ausland produced by Garbáty Cigarettenfabrik GmbH of Berlin-Pankow in Germany.

The foreword of Volume I of “Conquest of the Sky” describes the old dream of flight, and that as a result of courageous men and a lot of research and testing the great idea of flight has become a reality. Aviation had become more than an idea, it has become the connection and link-up of nations and cultures.

According to the foreword in Volume II, the first book on German aircraft was such an “extraordinary success” that the decision was made to produce a Volume II on foreign aircraft featuring sport, military and commercial airplanes from the United States, Central America, England, France, Holland, Italy, Spain, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Czechoslovakia, Russia, Rumania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Egypt, China and Japan.

Aircraft shown in Volume I of Die Eroberung der Luft are models manufactured by Rohrbach, Focke-Wulf, Arado, Junkers, Messerschmitt, Dornier, Heinkel, Klemm, Argus, and others. There are collector cards showing Mercedes, Siemens and Junkers airplane engines (below left), Ernst Udet and his Klemm airplane after it landed on the Montblanc (shown below), female pilots Elli Beinhorn and Marga von Etzdorf, parachutes, experimental planes, the Flieger-Denkmal at Rhön, barrage balloons, and interior and exterior pictures of zeppelins.

While the blue and silver embossed covers of both 8-7/8 x 11-3/4 inch cigarette card collector albums show wear, the original owner did a very good and careful job of glueing each picture in these books.

It is virtually impossible to find either volume of Die Eroberung der Luft with all the pictures or to find these two volumes for sale together. All the color pictures are in excellent condition and both albums have their original glassine pages and have no odor.

Foreign aircraft shown in Volume II of Die Eroberung der Luft are models manufactured by Northrup, Lockheed, Boeing, Douglas, Curtiss, Vought, Fokker, Vickers, Avro, Morane Saulnier, De Havilland, Gloster, Savoia, Breguet, Blériot, Wibault, Potez, Fiat, Macchi, Letov, etc.