|
 My dad was a stamp collector. So, the envelope I received
yesterday caught my attention. It was covered with old stamps. I was able to
identify many of them on the net. The earliest one is the NATO stamp issued in
1959. Many of the others are from 1961 - 1965. Some are from the early 1970s.
Here is what I found about the February 20, 1962 issue Mercury stamp:
 Special sale of U.S.A. Project Mercury First Day
covers commemorating the three orbit flight of John H.Glenn, Jr. in his space
capsule "Friendship 7". Glenn became the first American to
orbit the Earth.
305 post offices all over the country released the
Project Mercury stamp for sale to the public at 3:30 pm upon the successful splashdown of Astronaut John
Glenn Jr,. This stamp was designed and printed in secret and distributed to the
305 post offices. Even these post offices did not know what they had received
until word was given to open the packages and put the stamps on sale.
Since this was a surprise stamp issue, many post
offices only had the stamps on sale for a couple of hours. Collectors did not
have much time to prepare first day covers and they used whatever envelopes
were handy. Thus many of the Project Mercury FDCs have the cheaper envelope
paper used for everyday correspondence, and today many of these envelopes are
now beginning to show toning (a discoloration, which can be over the entire
envelope or by bleedthrough from the gummed seams and/or gummed back flap).
Only the Cape Canaveral Florida postmark has the words
"First Day of Issue" in its cancel. This is considered the official
cancel.
Many collectors have tried to collect a first day
cover from each of the 305 cities, but as far as I know this has not been
accomplished.
Did you know that when the Project Mercury stamp was
issued there was no post office named Cape Canaveral? Cape Canaveral was a geographical name for a point of land where
the launch took place.
The town of Port Canaveral did exist at the time of the Mercury/Glenn launch
and sometime later its name was changed to Cape Canaveral.
| 
