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Author
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Topic: 1962 4¢ Project Mercury: 50 years and searching
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Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 50912
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 02-20-2012 05:54 AM
   
collectSPACE Search continues for secret stamp honoring John Glenn's historic spaceflightFifty years ago Monday (Feb. 20), John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, relied on ground stations located across the planet to communicate with his control team. But after his Mercury spacecraft, Friendship 7, safely splashed down, it was another type of station that took over tracking his historic mission: U.S. post offices. For the first and only time in the country's postal history, the United States Post Office Department — since 1971, the U.S. Postal Service — surprised the public with the release of a secret stamp celebrating Glenn's successful mission. The 4-cent "Project Mercury" postage stamp was revealed and immediately put on sale in 305 post offices within an hour of Glenn's triumphant return to Earth at 2:43 p.m. EST (1943 GMT) on Feb. 20, 1962. Half a century later, collectors are still searching for those first-day-of-issue stamps.  Related previous discussion threads: |
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 50912
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 02-20-2012 01:35 PM
The Beaumont Enterprise reports about first-hand experience with the stamps' release 50 years ago. While Mercury astronaut John Glenn hurtled around his home planet three times on Feb. 20, 1962, Beaumont third-grader Billy Black, then 9 and a student at Sallie Curtis Elementary, stood in line at a post office to buy the brand-new Project Mercury postage stamps.A picture in The Enterprise captured the smiling blond-ish boy with his mother, Inge, who had urged him to buy the stamps. Fifty years later, William "Bill" Black, now a dentist for the Veterans Administration in Temple, still has that same sheet of stamps, kept in a safety deposit box. |
DOX32
Member Posts: 242
From: Lakewood Ranch FL USA
Registered: Jul 2004
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posted 02-21-2012 10:22 PM
Okay, how many different postmarks do you have for Scott 1193? The secret stamps not sold until 3:30 p.m. on Feb. 20, 1962.I have about 250 different, but a certain collector in New York is closest to getting all 305! |
gnewt
Member Posts: 10
From: Florida
Registered: Aug 2011
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posted 02-22-2012 08:29 PM
Just came across this story today; the search for the stamp... Years ago, a kind gentleman at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum museum in Washington DC gave me one of these stamped, first-day covers. It is on a blank envelope, in perfect, mint condition and postmarked at exactly 3:30p.m. from Cape Canaveral. Great story; I truly had no idea... |
Blackarrow
Member Posts: 3614
From: Belfast, United Kingdom
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 02-23-2012 05:50 PM
I have a cover with the special 4c stamp, post-marked "3.30pm, 20th February 1962" at Cape Canaveral and signed by John Glenn. I imagine there must be hundreds (thousands?) of these. |
KenDavis
Member Posts: 209
From: W.Sussex United Kingdom
Registered: May 2003
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posted 08-22-2023 06:33 AM
I’m always amazed by the number of different covers and cachets there are for John Glenn’s Mercury flight. Does anyone know roughly how many covers were cancelled for this event with the Mercury Capsule stamp, and does anyone collect these covers in particular and could comment on the variety of different covers that exist?Editor's note: Threads merged. |
Ken Havekotte
Member Posts: 3654
From: Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard
Registered: Mar 2001
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posted 08-22-2023 08:21 AM
One report indicated at least 250,000 of the 4-cent Project Mercury stamps were cancelled with Cape Canaveral on Feb. 20, 1962. Not knowing for sure, I would guess hundreds and hundreds of different cachet covers were produced throughout the country and elsewhere. What's also amazing of that high issued number of official first day covers is that John Glenn himself hand-signed thousands and thousands of them from 1962 until 2016. |
Axman
Member Posts: 117
From: Derbyshire UK
Registered: Mar 2023
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posted 08-22-2023 12:19 PM
I have a John Glenn signed FDC postmarked South Bend. I always assumed it was signed when Glenn visited Bendix in an official post-flight capacity.Is there an actual list of the 305 locations the stamps were issued at on that day? I've searched online but repeatedly just come up with the number 305 without a specific list of WHICH 305 locations these are! |
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 50912
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 08-22-2023 12:30 PM
The article linked from the top of this thread (here) has a list of all 305 post offices. |
Axman
Member Posts: 117
From: Derbyshire UK
Registered: Mar 2023
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posted 08-22-2023 12:47 PM
D'you know I must have read that article at least three times trying to find the link to the cities before I spotted it was on a sidebar to the right!I really do need to buy a computer and stop just using a phone for internet browsing before I go blind. Thanks for the information. |
Tom
Member Posts: 1701
From: New York
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted 08-22-2023 05:30 PM
Following the successful splashdown of Friendship 7, my older cousin, who was a stamp collector, went to the post office and purchased two Project Mercury stamp plate blocks... one for his collection and one for me. |
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