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Forum:	Stamps & Covers
Topic:	Space Cover 48: Mercury Stamp FDC's

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Your Reply: HTML is ON UBB Code is ON Smilies Legend	[QUOTE]Originally posted by MarylandSpace: [B]Nice article. I thoroughly enjoyed it.[/B][/QUOTE]
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<table border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width="600"><TR><td bgcolor="#000000"><TABLE BORDER=0 cellpadding=4 border=0 cellspacing=1 WIDTH="100%"><TR bgcolor="#660000"><TD COLSPAN=2><CENTER>T O P I C     R E V I E W</CENTER></TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#494949"><TD valign=top>Bob M</TD><TD><A HREF="http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum20/HTML/000507.html" TARGET=_blank>Space Cover of the Week</A>, Week 48 (March 14, 2010)<center><img src="https://www.collectspace.com/review/bobm/scotw048a.jpg" width="480" height="543"><img src="https://www.collectspace.com/review/bobm/scotw048b.jpg" width="480" height="555"></center> <BLOCKQUOTE>Space Cover #48, Mercury Stamp FDCsOn February 20, 1962, at 3:30 PM EST, shortly after John Glenn successfully completed his three orbits to become the first American to orbit the earth, 305 post offices around the country were notified by the United States Post Office to open secret packages shipped to them earlier.Enclosed inside the secret packages were sheets of the 4 cent Project Mercury stamp and instructions to immediately put them on sale. The sudden sale of these stamps all across the country was the first time a US postage stamp was issued simultaneously with the event it commemorated.After hearing the announcement, collectors and enthusiasts all across the USA scurried to local post offices to buy these new space stamps. Many Mercury stamps were put on covers and canceled for the stamp's First Day of Issue and some taken to other post offices to create so-called unofficial First Day Covers (FDC's).However, because of the late-in-the-day availability of the stamps, only a limited number of covers were canceled around the country on the historic February 20, 1962 date, and Mercury FDCs from some of the 305 post offices have never been found. Also covers were canceled at a temporary one-day postal station near the launch site using the standard "First Day of Issue" cancel. Covers from the other 304 post offices were canceled with just regular post office hand stamp and machine cancels.Enthusiasm for these Mercury FDC's resulted in many collectors actively searching for FDCs from all 305 cities and also unofficial cities. Collectors of that time were very active in buying and trading for needed Mercury FDC's. Of course, the fad eventually died down, but Mercury stamp FDC's from hundreds of US post offices are still sought after by some of today's collectors.Shown here are Mercury FDC's from 4 of the 305 official cities. Because of no prior announcement of the "Surprise Stamps," no covers with Mercury cachets were available to use that day, so collectors used whatever cacheted, or blank, covers they had. Many of the blank, uncacheted, FDC's were later cacheted with Mercury Program cachets designed and applied after the flight, which 3 covers here illustrate.</BLOCKQUOTE> </TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#333333"><TD valign=top>DOX32</TD><TD>I have a little over two humdred of these from differnt locations.Henry Scheuer has the most complete collection I know of (he may be missing less than twenty).As you noted, the published Post Office list showed 305 post offices that they went on sale at, but many were bought and postmaked at many other unofficial locations.Great collecting subject.</TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#494949"><TD valign=top>spaceman1953</TD><TD>I think Cedar Rapids had a very active stamp club for many, many years... in fact I think it still exists and they have an annual show, so this MAY be a "club" produced cachet?</TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#333333"><TD valign=top>MarylandSpace</TD><TD>Nice article. I thoroughly enjoyed it.</TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#494949"><TD valign=top>Axman</TD><TD>I have recently added this specific category (FDCs for Project Mercury, official and unofficial city postmarks) to my searches.I am trying to get as many different, but contemporaneous to issue, cachets as possible. But I am also collecting plain uncacheted envelopes, and I have one from South Bend signed by John Glenn - I imagine a Bendix worker asked him to sign on one of his many visits there...I do not have many covers as yet, somewhere around the twenty mark, but I have a number of interesting cachets already. I like the Dayton Ohio cachet, but my favourite so far is from Detroit.<center><a href="https://www.collectspace.com/review/axman/scotw48a-lg.jpg" target="AirLock"><img src="https://www.collectspace.com/review/axman/scotw48a.jpg" width="400" height="435" border="0"></a></center>I also have a few unofficial city postmarks too. As far as I can work out my Huntsville postmarked Project Mercury stamp cover lies furthest from the nearest of the 305 official city post offices: it is 102 miles from Chattanooga. Are there any unofficial postmarks that are even further away from the nearest official city?</TD></TR></TABLE></td></tr></table>

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