Search Continues for Secret Stamp Honoring John Glenn's Historic Spaceflight

by Robert Z. Pearlman, collectSPACE.com Editor

Date: 20 February 2012 Time: 08:02 AM ET

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The 1962 4-cent "Project Mercury" stamp marked the first time that the U.S. issued a previously unannounced commemorative stamp at the same time as the event it was issued to honor: John Glenn’s historic Friendship 7 spaceflight. CREDIT: collectSPACE.com View full size image

Fifty years ago today (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.

MORE: http://www.space.com/14629-secret-stamp-john-glenn-historic-spaceflight.html

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