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| German Coins 3 Reichsmark Silver coin Graf Zeppelin flight |
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| German Coins 3 Reichsmark Silver coin |
German commemorative silver 3 Reichsmark coin of 1930 issued to honoring the Rigid airship DLZ127 Graf Zeppelin's Round-the-world flight 1929.
Obverse: The rigid airship DLZ127 "Graf Zeppelin" is in front of a globe. Left of the southern tip of Africa is the abbreviation of minting.
Legend: . GRAF ZEPPELIN WELTFLUG 1929.
Reverse: Shield with German heraldic eagle surrounded by the country name "German Reich", the year and the nominal "3 REICHSMARK".
Legend: DEUTSCHES . REICH 1930* 3 REICHSMARK *
Mint Place: Berlin Mint (Mint Mark A); Mintage: 540.000.
Weight: 15 gram of Silver
Diameter: 30 mm
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LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin
LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin (Deutsches Luftschiff Zeppelin #127; Registration: D-LZ 127) was a German-built and -operated, passenger-carrying, hydrogen-filled, rigid airship which operated commercially from 1928 to 1937. It was named after the German pioneer of airships, Ferdinand von Zeppelin, who was a graf (count) in the German nobility. During its operating life, the airship made 590 flights covering more than a million miles (1.6 million km). It was designed to be operated by a crew of 36 officers and men.
Round-the-world flight - 1929
At the behest of American newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, whose media empire was the major commercial backer of the project with four staffers among the flight's nine passengers, the Graf's "Round-the-World" (Weltrundfahrt 1929) flight in August 1929 officially began and ended at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey. As with many of the airship's other flights, however, its expenses were also heavily offset by the carriage of souvenir mails to and/or from Lakehurst, Friedrichshafen, Tokyo, and Los Angeles. A U.S. franked letter flown on the whole trip from Lakehurst to Lakehurst, for instance, required US$3.55 in postage or the equivalent of roughly $45 in current dollars if based on the CPI. The $200,000 Hearst paid for exclusive media rights would currently be the equivalent of $2.5 million if figured on the same basis.
As with the October, 1928 flight to New York, Hearst correspondent Lady Grace Drummond-Hay was on board making her the first woman to circumnavigate the globe by air. Also representing Hearst among the passenger complement were correspondents Karl von Wiegand and Australian Arctic explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins, and photographer/newsreel cameraman Robert Hartmann. The US Government was represented by Naval airshipmen LCDR Charles Rosendahl and LT Jack C. Richardson who flew as official observers. A semi-documentary film entitled "Farewell" was released in 2009 which featured much of the newsreel footage of Lady Drummond-Hay shot by Hartmann during the flight. The film was later aired on the BBC under the title "Around The World by Zeppelin".
The Graf Zeppelin flew back across the Atlantic to Friedrichshafen to refuel before continuing across Eastern Europe, Russia, and the vastness of Siberia to Tokyo (Kasumigaura Naval Air Station) on a 101 hour, 49 minute nonstop leg covering 7,297 miles (11,743 km). Although the Soviet government had formally requested by radio to the "Graf" for the airship to overfly its capital, Moscow, Dr. Eckener declined because of the necessity "to take advantage of the tailwinds and remain on the straight airline without deviation or halt" necessary in order to reach Tokyo nonstop, a decision which resulted in considerable disappointment and annoyance on the part of the Russians. (To make amends for this perceived slight, a year later the "Graf" made a special two-day round trip flight from Friedrichshafen to Moscow on September 9–10, 1930 landing briefly to collect souvenir mail at Moscow's "October Field" (Октябрьское поле) where it was greeted by a crowd of some 100,000 people.) Crossing the inadequately mapped Stanovoy Mountains in Siberia proved to be a precarious venture with the Graf eventually being forced to climb to 6,000 feet in order to clear the range through a high mountain canyon with barely 150 feet to spare. After five days in Tokyo, the Graf continued across the Pacific to California crossing the coast at San Francisco before landing at Mines Field in Los Angeles thus completing the first ever nonstop flight of any kind across the Pacific Ocean, covering 5,986 miles (9,634 km) in 79 hours and 54 minutes.
The 2,996-mile (4,822 km), 51 hour 13 minute transcontinental flight across the United States took the Graf over 13 states and such cities as El Paso, Kansas City, Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit before arriving back at Lakehurst from the west on the morning of August 29, three weeks after it had departed to the east on August 8. Flying time for the four Lakehurst to Lakehurst legs was 12 days, 12 hours and 13 minutes while the entire circumnavigation (including stops) took 21 days, 5 hours and 31 minutes and covered 33,234 km (20,651 mi).
Germany issued a special commemorative silver 3RM coin in 1930 in recognition of the Graf Zeppelin's historic flight. Dr. Eckener's personal accomplishment received acclaim as well when he became just the tenth recipient (third aviator) in 42 years to be awarded the Gold Medal of the National Geographic Society which was presented to him on March 27, 1930 before a crowd of 5,000 at the Washington Auditorium in Washington, DC. The citation read that Eckener received the award "for his work in furthering the progress of airships, and to commemorate the first around-the-world flight of the Graf Zeppelin." Before returning to Germany Eckener also met with President Herbert Hoover as well as the US Postmaster General whom he successfully lobbied for a special three stamp issue (C-13, 14 & 15) for use on mails to be carried on the Europe-PanAmerican Flight scheduled to leave Germany seven weeks later in mid-May.