posted 05-05-2025 08:57 AM
   
Those of us who collect space covers, and especially the dedicated astrophilatelists amongst us keep a keen eye out for the "correct" cancellation (more commonly known in Britain as the postmark: although technically speaking a cancellation is just a specific type of postmark, and postmarks can be any number of things other than a cancellation!).But sometimes, having collected a properly cancelled space cover, one notices a secondary random postmark. I quite like these. Although they have absolutely zilch to do with the primary space-based reason to collect the cover in the first place, they add a unique philatelic aspect to each cover in question. Here is an example:  
As can be seen, the obverse has a hand cancel for Cape Canaveral in the morning of February 11th 1963 cancelling two 4c postage stamps (well above the 5c rate of the period). The RSC text on a printed cachet tells us the cancellation is a proper "launch cover." The reverse of the cover has a machine cancel postmark which isn't cancelling any postage stamps. It's also upside down. The circular date stamp portion is for Concord N.C. at 6.30pm on February 12th 1963. So why the postmark on the back a day and a half after the proper appropriate cancellation on the front? Well, I surmise that this particular cover was serviced on the day by an agent who applied the RSC text to a SpaceCraft preprinted stamped addressed envelope and popped it into the postal system.
A day and a bit later when it arrived at Concord N.C. an eagle-eyed USPS employee noticed it should have gone to Concord N.H., and ran it through the machine before recycling it back into the onward postal process. I would love to see anybody else's random postmark covers. | 
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