?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,200 - $ 1,800
BOP B BY AIR TO USSR. 1934. 361/8x237/8 inches. Condition A-: minor wrinkles and creases in image. Paper. Officially formed in 1923, Aeroflot's original fleet was a combination of different aircraft including De Havillands, Vickers and Junkers. By 1934 the world's largest passenger airplane was the Russian-built Tupolev Ant-20, "the Maxim Gorky," a far better propaganda tool than an aeronautic marvel. Here, a Junkers is pictured flying over the capitals of Europe. Surprisingly, although this is a poster for Aeroflot, it does not mention the company's name. The aircraft depicted is a Soviet-produced Antonov AN-9, advertising Lufthansa and Deruluft's routes in Europe and to the USSR. Deruluft was a unique joint venture between Germany and the USSR started in 1922 that had the exclusive right to serve the air routes from Berlin to Leningrad and Moscow using both German and Soviet aircraft. It folded in 1937. All the internal Soviet routes on the poster were operated by Aeroflot, which did not operate at this time outside the USSR. All the European routes were really out of Berlin flown by Lufthansa, but one got from Moscow to Berlin only on Deruluft. It is all a bit of period creative marketing.
