Original circa 1932–33 SABENA aerial route strip-map booklet, issued by the Belgian national airline with Shell sponsorship.
This is a pocket guide for early air passengers, designed so travelers could follow the landscape below the flight path. It has fold-out strip maps for two of Sabena's interwar routes:
The maps are printed in red, blue, and black. They show main roads, rivers and canals, railways, aerodromes, and the flight line, with distance markers along the route. The London map opens beneath an image of a Fokker F.VII trimotor, Sabena's workhorse airliner of the period. The pages are secured with small brass winged-propeller fasteners.
The contents date the booklet. It includes the Berlin route, which Sabena opened in 1932. The agency listings use the pre-1933 spelling "Deutsche Luft Hansa." And the Brussels headquarters are given at the Haren aerodrome, Sabena's main base before WWII.
Also includes:
- A directory of Sabena offices and partner agencies across Europe: Imperial Airways (Victoria Station and Croydon), Deutsche Luft Hansa (Tempelhof and others), KLM, Det Danske Luftfartselskab, A/B Aerotransport, and Lignes Farman
- A trilingual Shell advertisement in French, English, and German, with shell logos
- An Art Deco advertisement for the Red Star Line "Touristendampfer" sailing Antwerp–Havre–Southampton to New York and Canada
- An advertisement for the Grand Hôtel de Londres in Antwerp
Navy cover with a gilt airplane and SABENA wordmark, plus a band closure.
A rare survivor from the earliest years of European commercial aviation. It crosses over into airline, aviation, map, Shell/petroliana, ocean liner (Red Star Line), and Art Deco ephemera collecting.
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