posted 08-17-2026 10:19 AM               

At first glance this is another ordinary launch cover for an early missile firing.
However, a second glance reveals that the cancelled stamp was issued nearly a month later than the postmark!

The Project Mercury stamp was released on 20th February 1962. So what is it doing being cancelled on 25th January 1962? There can only be one of five reasons as outlined below:

1. A forgery
   
2. A backdated cancellation.
   
3. An early stamp release.
   
4. A postmark date slug error.
   
5. A postmark year error.

On the same grounds it is hardly likely to be a backdated cancellation either.

I cannot conceive, although I have no actual evidence, that it could possibly be an early stamp release. I very much doubt, given the secrecy around the design and release of the stamp, that any specimens would be available so far in advance of the release date. If it was this scenario then this would be one of the rarest philatelic items in the world. So, I think we can dismiss that.

Which leaves either an error in the date plug for the month or year.

Neither McMahan or Astronautix have any Atlas launch or Vandenberg launch on January 25th 1962 or February 25th 1962, but both record an Atlas launch from Vandenberg on 25th January 1963: an Atlas D SAC training shot which was recorded as a destroyed in flight failure.

It's my guess this is the correct interpretation. But I'm not an expert on US cancellation postmarks. Is that a reasonable conclusion? Can US machine cancellations have a mistaken year applied to them? And if so, how common are these mistakes?

posted 08-17-2026 11:20 AM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Axman:
I cannot conceive, although I have no actual evidence, that it could possibly be an early stamp release.

---

John Glenn's original launch date was in December 1961. According to the U.S. Postal Department, the secret stamps had already been shipped out to the post offices to support that first attempt (and their cover was almost blown by a newspaper in Florida that reported a rumor of a secret stamp ahead of that first try).

Jan. 25, 1962 was one of the 11 dates that NASA tried to launch John Glenn. That launch attempt was thwarted even before Glenn began to suit up.

Could a postmaster have acted improperly and opened early the package addressed to the postal inspector marked "Classified Material" and "Do Not Open"?

posted 08-17-2026 01:06 PM               

(I just assumed they hadn't been printed weeks before release, but thinking about it that seems an absurd assumption, especially given the numbers of stamps involved.)

posted 08-17-2026 01:25 PM               

Notable ones -

• the APRIL machine cancel postmark on USS Lake Chaplain cover for Shepard's flight pictured in Don Schultz's book.

• Or the upside down 1966 in machine and hand cancels for recovery ships for Gemini missions.

• The wrong date from PAFB for Skylab IV splashdown hand cancel - crossed out and correct day written in.

• BOMARC from Eglin AFB March 10, 1961 with cancel date as MAR 01 1961.

posted 08-17-2026 05:58 PM               

Being that the event was in January, it is easily imaginable that there was a postmark device that hadn't been used in the new year, then the postal clerk updated the day and month in the hub and didn't think to update the year before using it.

posted 08-17-2026 08:27 PM               

As Dennis points out by his last paragraph posting above, it would seem very practical in not changing the year to '63 as the new year was just beginning.

There was indeed an Air Force Atlas-39D ICBM launch on Jan. 25, 1963, nicknamed "Big Sue", of an Operational Test (OT) that resulted in a launch failure by the booster stage only reaching 60 miles high. It was going to be a target vehicle for the Army's Nike-Zeus anti-ballistic missile interceptor program.

As a sidebar to Tom's mention of some Skylab 3 (SL-4) hand cancelled signed crew emblem covers being wrongly-dated at PAFB for the splashdown and recovery of the final manned Skylab flight in Feb. 1974, I was there!

I had a couple of crew signed covers done for liftoff, along with a hand-full of other
SL-4 covers for my drive to the air force base post office on that exciting day.

My goal was to acquire a signed combo-launch and splashdown cover (2) at bottom right side. As it turned out, the Patrick postal clerk took away my cover lot and applied a proper landing month and day, but he failed to notice that he had forgotten to change the year slug from 1973 to 1974.