Cinderella Stamps of the 1933 Century of Progress Expo in Chicago, Illinois

(Zeppelins on)
Cinderella Stamps of the Century of Progress Expo in Chicago, Illinois

A web surfer who found my web site wrote to ask

Have you ever seen a poster stamp for the Century of Progress world's fair in Chicago in 1933? I've gone and got myself hooked on this world's fair. So any info would be great, and a pic would probly send me into a swoon!

I looked at my random assortment of poster stamps from US World's Fairs and expos, and found the ones below. There are many excellent sites about that fair, so I won't duplicate their efforts here. Look at the following if you want more information about the Fair itself.

site 1... site 2... site 3... site 4... site 5

As for the poster stamps I thought my viewer wanted, they are shown below. Just the ones I have acquired with no special effort, so I assume there are many more. Note that the Expo lasted into 1934.

But that seemed much too easy, didn't it? Alas, as I wrote to tell the inquirer I had published this page, I noticed the title of his e-mail, which was "Zepp poster stamp for Century of Progress?". Oh.

No, I have not yet seen a poster stamp for the 1933 Fair with a Zeppelin. Have you? Please e-mail me at if you know of any.

Anyway, to start with, here is an aerial view of the 1933-34 Chicago fair. It's my favorite view of the Expo, and is taken from a publicity pamphlet of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway (The Burlington Route), produced specially for the event. The Graf Zeppelin IS featured prominently here, and I can't help wondering if the photo was doctored to include it, as the Graf docked in Chicago for a mere 25 minutes on October 26, 1933, from 1 to 1:25 PM. Then again, it was a special event, so it's not surprising someone would have wanted to record it this way.

And here are all the poster stamps I could find in my collections from the event. Note that it lasted two years, so some of these are dated 1934. No Zeppelins. But you will find postcards, and perhaps even Cinderellas, with the Goodyear blimp - I have a couple of postcards. Goodyear had an exhibit at the Expo. However, a blimp is not a Zeppelin.