Air Namibia: Cape Town to Walvis Bay, 1994

A multicolored first-day envelope marking the launch of SW741, Air Namibia's first direct flight from Walvis Bay, the principal port of the Skeleton Coast to Cape Town in nearby South Africa. The service by the young Air Namibia, flag carrier of a country that had only voted for independence three years prior, but had only taken control of the exclave of Walvis Bay a matter of weeks before this B737 took the skies.

The envelope is dominated by Air Namibia's crane-silhouette logo (which is repeated on the air mail mark above), above which is a delightful South African postage, reprinting a woodcut of colonial Walvis Bay from 1878.