1930s Heinz Aviator #5 Harold Neumann, 1935 Thompson Trophy Winner, Mr. Mulligan For Sale

1930s Heinz Aviator #5 Harold Neumann
1935 Thompson Trophy Winner, Mr. Mulligan
Replaced Laura Ingalls at No. 5 in Heinz Series 2DESCRIPTIONOriginal 1930s H.J. Heinz Company aviator trading card No. 5, Harold E. Neumann, from the Heinz Famous Aviator Pictures series (American Card Catalog F277-4, second series). One card was packed in each package of Heinz Rice Flakes and Heinz Breakfast Wheat, and the back invited kids to collect all 25 and mail two of the big 57 trademarks to Heinz in Pittsburgh for a free album with a world airway map. The front shows Neumann in leather helmet and goggles beside a green monoplane in flight and a red and white checkered pylon, with his name on a blue banner. The back carries his biography, the print code 13137 and the line Litho in U.S.A. The card measures approximately 3 x 1 7/8 inches. Front and back scanned at 600 dpi.This card has a story inside the set. When Heinz first issued the series in 1936, card No. 5 was Laura Ingalls. After that first printing, Heinz withdrew five of the aviators (Amelia Earhart, Laura Ingalls, Howard Hughes, Edwin Musick and Frank Hawks) and replaced them with Shorty Schroeder, Harold Neumann, Dick DePew, Bob Vaughn and Major de Seversky. Neumann took over No. 5, and the replacement cards carry the 1937 print code 13137 on the back. Heinz did not explain the change on the cards. The withdrawn first-series versions are the ones collectors hunt hardest, while this replacement is the version that filled the No. 5 slot for the remainder of the series.Harold Neumann earned that spot in 1935. A barnstormer from Geneseo, Illinois who learned to fly in 1926, he flew Benny Howard's racing airplanes and won the Thompson Trophy Race at the Cleveland National Air Races in Howard's Mister Mulligan, a four-place cabin monoplane that looked out of place among the small custom racers on the line. By his own later account, the engine nearly quit when the starting flag dropped, he was the last airplane off the ground, and his first laps became a test flight until the engine cleared and he began passing the field. Roscoe Turner, the favorite, blew an engine and dead-sticked in front of the grandstand. Neumann kept racing, finished at an average of 220.19 mph ahead of Steve Wittman's Bonzo, and did not know he had won until he landed. Three days earlier Howard had flown the same airplane to victory in the Bendix Trophy Race, a double no other airplane managed in the same year at Cleveland.The card back notes that Neumann was rated the number one pilot of 1935 by the National Aeronautic Association and was engaged in regular airline flying for Transcontinental and Western Air. TWA hired him in October 1936, and his career there lasted until 1966, from the Douglas DC-1 to the Boeing 707. He is credited with piloting TWA's inaugural Constellation flight from Paris to Chicago O'Hare in 1955. He kept competing in aerobatics into his seventies in his Monocoupe Little Mulligan, took part in the 1985 dedication of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum alongside Jimmy Doolittle, Jimmy Mattern and Steve Wittman, and was the last surviving winner of a pre-World War II Thompson Trophy Race when he died on July 5, 1995. Mister Mulligan itself was destroyed in the 1936 Bendix Race when it lost a propeller blade near Crownpoint, New Mexico, and its wreckage was tracked down 34 years later.Every effort is made for fact checking and provenance, including background research through news and historical archives. If any listing is incorrect in any way and you are unsatisfied with the item, please connect with me and I will make it right. Orders placed before Noon CDT ship the same day via USPS Ground Advantage with tracking so you know exactly when it will arrive. Items ship in rigid, professional packaging, sealed and protected in acid free protectors. Shipping is free and already built into the price, so the BIN price is exactly what you pay, with no surprise shipping costs at checkout.CONDITIONHeavily worn and offered as a well-used collector copy, with the image and color still strong. The front has several creases and fold lines, including diagonal creases across the portrait where the ink has cracked and white paper shows along the folds. Corners are rounded, the edges are soft and fuzzy with small nicks, and the upper left edge shows some fraying. The borders have toned to cream with light soiling. The back is toned and fully readable, with surface scuffing, a crease, a few rubbed letters in the album paragraph, and faint old pencil handwriting across the lower back. No tears or missing pieces are visible in the scans. Please review the 600 dpi front and back scans, which show the card exactly as it will be sent.