1908 Léon Delagrange Real Photo Postcard; Verified Distance & Endurance Record For Sale

The World Record That Lasted 23 Days
1908 Léon Delagrange Real Photo Postcard: Verified Distance & Endurance Record Flight,Issy-les-Moulineaux, France, 6 September 1908DESCRIPTIONGenuine French real photo postcard (RPPC, silver gelatin print stock — no halftone dot pattern under magnification, ruling out a later collotype reprint) documenting one of the true landmark flights of the pioneer era.Printed caption reads: "22 — Locomotion Aérienne. DELAGRANGE sur biplan, à Issy-Les Moulineaux, 6 Septembre 1908." The image shows Léon Delagrange's Voisin biplane aloft over the Issy-les- Moulineaux flying field outside Paris, with a knot of spectators below in period hats and coats, one man pointing skyward at the aircraft. Publisher device mark visible lower right of the image. Back is the standard French "Carte Postale" divided-back format, printed "89" upper right, with publisher imprint "Marque 'ROSE', Paris. 145, rue du Temple" running vertically along the left edge. Unposted — no stamp, no cancellation, no message.Why this date matters: on 6 September 1908, this is the exact flight shown, Delagrange set the world distance and endurance records, covering 24.727 km (15.4 miles) in 29 minutes 53.8 seconds at Issy-les-Moulineaux — a huge jump over anything flown before it, in the same handful of weeks Wilbur and Orville Wright were making headlines of their own at Le Mans and Fort Myer. The record didn't last: rival Henri Farman broke it just 23 days later, on 29 September, with a 39 km flight at Châlons, and kept extending it into October. That back-and-forth was the whole story of 1908 aviation — Farman and Delagrange trading the record back and forth almost weekly as the two men who, between them, were writing the record book of powered flight in real time. This card is a period document of the moment Delagrange held that record, published close enough to the event to carry the exact date as its caption.A genuine, dateable, single-event real photo postcard from the first year powered flight became a real public spectacle in France — not a generic "early aviation" stock image, but a photograph tied to a specific record-setting flight that was frontpage news across Europe within days.Ships in a rigid mailer with a postcard-safe sleeve.CONDITIONGenuine period real photo postcard, silver gelatin print (photographic tone confirmed under magnification — no halftone/dot pattern, not a later collotype reproduction). Divided back, unposted, no stamp or message.Honest condition notes: there is a closed diagonal tear running from the top edge into the bottom-left corner of the card (does not go through the printed caption or main image subject), with noticeable foxing/staining concentrated in that same corner and scattered along the bottom edge of both the front and back. Corners are rounded from age/handling rather than sharp. Overall toning consistent with 115+ years of storage. No writing, no postal cancellation. See photos of both sides — sold exactly as shown, condition priced in.