Cabin of Piccard's altitude research balloon, 1931, (1932). Swiss physicist Auguste Piccard (1884-1962) built a balloon with an airtight cabin, equipped with pressurized air. On 27 May 1931, Piccard and Paul Kipfer reached an altitude of 15,781 metres (51,775 feet), where the atmospheric pressure is about one-tenth that at sea level. From "Die Eroberung Der Luft", (The Conquest of the Air), cigarette card album produced by the Garb?ty cigarette factory, 1932. Eugene and Moritz Garb?ty, who were Jewish, were driven out of business by the Nazis in the late 1930s, and forced to sell their factory which lay empty for over 70 years. [Garbaty Cigarettenfabrik, Berlin-Pankow, 1932]