THE ROCKET MAIL PAGE, PART 2
By Paul A. Roales
Updated: April 30, 2012 Return to the opening Rocket Mail page here.
NEWS
(Added April 30, 2012) THE MOST RECENT LAUNCH.
By Paul A. Roales and others.
ITEM 1: THE MOST RECENT LAUNCH
As reported last month Sandy Warwick launched a rocket mail flight in April.Here is what she had to say: "Flight report from Catoosa [OK]. At 7:30 am today [April 6, 2012] we flew our WA-77SB rocket. The flight was normal but there was a lot of turbulance which caused use to loose some air speed. The rocket reached 3.200 feet and a airspeed of 350 mph. The payload was 24 post cards which featured the Delta III heavy night launch and the 747 transport with the space shuttle."
The front of both postcards and one reverse is shown below. Sandy has used these identical postcards in several earlier flights. If you are interested in obtaining examples of her flights she can be reached at Apw45warwick@aol.com
ITEM 2: THE LATEST ASTROPHILE
The latest issue of The Astrophile is Vol. 56, #312. It is devoted exclusively to Russian Astrophilatelely and has no rocket mail articles.
REMINDER.
This page depends upon your information to prosper. Please contact me if you have any rocket mail information or news.
(Added April 1, 2012) AN UNLISTED COVER AND AN UPCOMING LAUNCH.
By Paul A. Roales and others.
ITEM 1: CAN YOU TELL ME ANYTHING ABOUT THIS COVER?
I recently acquired an unlisted rocket mail cover. It is shown on the left below. It is unmailed, so it may also be unflown. I am trying to find out more about the cover. It resembles US EZ 98 (on the right below) and I suspect they were launched by the same group. But I know nothing about the cover. Can anyone supply any information on it or the New York group that launched US EZ 98?
ITEM 2: AN UPCOMING FLIGHT
Late in March Major Sandy Warwick informed me: "This is just a heads up that weather permitting I will be flying a single flight in the next ten days. I will be flying the space shuttle on the 747 and the delta four rocket post cards." Sandy flies 4 or 5 flights a year, so if you want to get on her subscription list you can contact her at Apw45warwick@aol.com I will report on this flight next month.
(Added March 1, 2012) THE FIRST FLIGHT OF 2012 AND ANOTHER FLIGHT FROM 2011.
By Paul A. Roales and others.
ITEM 1: THE FIRST FLIGHT IN 2112.
Last month I got the following email from Major Sandy Warwick: "On 2/10/12 we conducted a low level test flight at the southeast campus of the Tulsa [OK] Community College were I work. We wanted to see what the winds aloft were like at this location. There was a southeast wind at three mph. Since I plan to give each of the rocketry classes this summer a demo flight I wanted to test the site out. This site has woods on the south end; a lake and major highway on the east side and appartments to the west. So the ideal wind will be a north or south wind and no more than ten mph. The test rocket was a extended version of the maxi-alpha III model rocket with a low power motor. It reached 1200' in alt with a speed of 350 mph. Only ten covers were flown that day; they are a standard envelope with the summer youth program label / one of the Warwick rocketry label on rose colored paper. The cover is also marked Tulsa Community College test flight. The stamp is the first class Messenger mission stamp canceled in Catoosa OK. These covers $ 5.00 each. There is only one spare cover for sale as of today."
Sandy can be contacted at Apw45warwick@aol.com if you are interested in this cover or any of her rocket mail flights.
ITEM 2: A SWISS LAUNCH IN NOVEMBER.
I also received the following information from Miri Matejka about their launch in November last year: "I have the honor to inform you about a new rocketlaunch on November 11, 2011 at “Cape Kaltbrunn” – SWISS. With our rocket AUSTRO-RESEARCH were covers flown for the following events: 50 years monkey “GOLIATH”, 20 years “AUSTROMIR”, launch first china space station “TIANGONG”, launch “SHENZHOU-8”. From each event 50 covers in various types were flown."
These four covers are shown below.
(Added January 31, 2012) A WRAP UP OF LAST YEARS LAUNCHES
By Paul A. Roales and others.
ITEM 1: Missouri Launch in December.
On December 12, 2011 Sandy Warwick flew two rocket mail flights at Bernie, MO. She says:
"I just got back from my launch site in Bernie Mo. I had one day of great
weather while I was there. The temp was 29* wind 0 mph and a clear sky.
The first flight of the day was a test flight of my new WA77-SB; SB stands
for short body with booster. The flight was stable and reached 3000' and
a speed of 400 mph and ten covers were flown. the covers were of the old
Tulsa post cards with my new rocket mail stamp placed on the back. The Tulsa cards are a christmas gift to all you friends who purchase my rocket mail covers. As of
December 7 2011 all covers flown by me will have the new stamp on them.
The second flight was a night launch at 7:30 pm weather conditions were
the same as 7am except the temp was now 33*. I used a chemical light
attached the shock cord as a marker it worked well and the recovery was easy.
flight two flew to 1,880' and a speed of 400 mph. we flew ten total night
flight covers; these were the Delta 4 heavey night launch post cards.
The Delta 4 cards are $5 usd each." (Only the data side of these cards is shown below).
In addition, Sandy flew 14 sets of the two First Day Of Issue covers of the Alan Shepard stamp and the Messenger Spacecraft stamp both issued and postmarked on May 4, 2011 at Kennedy Space Center in Fl. These were flown on rocket WA77-SB to an altitude of 3000'with the 10 Tulsa covers mentioned above.
You can contact Sandy Warwick at Apw45warwick@aol.com for information ond to purchase her covers.
ITEM 2: Switzerland in August Launch.
Also late last year I received the following information from Miri Matejka:
"I have the honor to inform you about a new rocketlaunch on August 20, 2011 at “Cape Kaltbrunn” – SWISS. With our rocket AUSTRO-RESEARCH were covers flown for the following events: 50 years GAGARIN, 50 years SHEPARD and GRISSOM, the last SPACE SHUTTLE flights.
From each event 50 covers in various types were flown."
As usual with this group, the covers are only sold on eBay. I reproduces some examples of these covers below.
(Added December 1, 2011) FUN STUFF.
By Paul A. Roales.
ITEM 1: SOME RECENT ACQUISITIONS.
No new launches to report this month so I thought I would mentiobn some of my recent acquisitions.
A. I bought a collection of over 150 original photographs (some duplicates) of rocket mail flights from the 1950's and 1960's. They include pre-launch preperations; launches; and recoveries. At least 15 different flights are represented in the collection. There is some great history in this collection.
B. I have also acquired one of the rocket mail covers that has been on my "want list" since I started in the hobby over 15 years ago. It is US EZ 53, the May 15 1963 launch at Shawnee, OK. The cover commemorated the flight of home town Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper. It was flown and postmarked on the date of his flight. It carried 190 covers. Notice that my example below has been signed by Gordon Cooper. The picture on the left shows the launch rocket "Shawnee's Faith 7" with the Mr. Malcolm Murphy Jr. (the originator of the flight) on the left and (I believe) Mr. Jim Post who was the rocket mail label designer on the right. This photo is from the collection I mentioned above and is one of 4 different photos I have of the Shawnee event.
(Added October 30, 2011) A LAUNCH AND MORE MYSTERIES.
By Paul A. Roales & Others.
ITEM 1: THE LATEST LAUNCH.
As mentioned last month, Major Sandy Warwick launched her latest rocket mail at Bernie, MO on October 11, 2011. She launched 12 postcards of each design. Shown below are the 2 front designs and one common reverse. The unidentified picture is a Delta 4 Heavy Rocket. She said of this launch: "On Oct 11 at Bernie launch site we flew the lattest set of rocket mail cards. the weather was good except there was a stong down draft in the flight area. it did cause a medium altitude flight with a very short recovery time of 34 seconds. The WA-77 did reach 4000' and a airspeed of 350 mph. And there was no damage to the rocket. Each set is $10." Sandy can be reached at Apw45warwick@aol.com if you are interested in purchasing cards.
ITEM 2: SOME MORE MYSTERY ITEMS.
Here are two more of the Mystery Items provided by John Haynes. If you can provide any information on these or the three items featured last month I would appreciate hearing from you.
About the labels on the left below John says: "These are the golightly vignettes that were used in the UK and in a few isolated cases in India. These particular ones have been crudely overprinted with '80.C' and 'U.S'. Again I do not know why these have been overprinted nor by whom. There would appear to be targeted for the USA but there is no info that I can find as to what they were intended for? I note that two appear to have been cancelled in a similar way. One of them appears to have the wording 'Ango 2'"
As John mentions this design was first used iN England on EZ1 in May, 1934. But they are almost an exact copy of France EZ1 used in Jan, 1935, except the overprint are in English. Note that the text on the bottom of the upper right label is "4. 7. 34.", could that be July 4, 1934, indicating they were planned for the US Independence Day?
About the labels on the right below John says: "I wasn't aware that Roberti did anything other than close to home (France/Belgium). I certainly wasn't aware that he was planning on
undertaking any experiments at the 1936 International Philatelic Exhibition in New York. Any ideas what these stamps were produced for and why? Were there any plans by him to fly a rocket in the US?"
I believe there is an explanation for them in US EZ-9. The "Fields-Picklo Catalog of Philatelic Show Seals, Labels, & Souvenirs" says the US EZ-9 labels were prepared in 1936: by a New York group" (probably let by the German Karl Hennig...PAR) "in the hope that
either Gerhard Zucker (Germany) or Karl Roberti (Holland) would come to the Exhibition and would then arrange for such starts. But neither of these 2 experimenters arrived in America & therefore none of these labels have been used for any rocket mail transportation, neither in the U.S. nor in Canada, even though labels exist with cachets & on covers". I believe that Karl Hennig was behind this operation because most of the covers I have seen with
the EZ-9 labels are either addressed to him or to Booth 77 which was his booth at that 1936 TIPEX Show (Info from Ellen Peachey, Library Services Coordinator, American Philatelic Research Library). Also he continued to market these EZ-9 covers in his rocket mail catalogs for years after World War II.
In 2004 I bought a normal 1934 New York National Stamp Exhibition label which has been overprinted with "Rocket-Post / Experiment-Flight", the date changed to 1936 and the denomination changed to 75. I believe this was also intended to be used at the 1936 TIPEX Show (International Philatelic Exhibition) along with the labels listed as US EZ-9 in the EZ Catalog. I am guessing that the Roberti labels were also created for that planned event. But I have never seen these Roberti labels before. A number of different labels were created just for this event and neither the EZ Catalog nor the Fields-Picklo Catalog mentions my 1934 label with overprints or John's Roberti labels. But the New York locations and 1936 dates argue that these label were to be used for the proposed 1936 rocket mail
launches. So perhaps this is a new discovery?
(Added October 1, 2011) SOME NEWS AND SOME MYSTERIES.
By Paul A. Roales & Others.
ITEM 1: AN UPCOMING ROCKET MAIL FLIGHT.
On September 21 Major Sandy Warwick emailed me: "I will be flying a two card set from Bernie Mo. within the next two weeks. So please let me know how many sets you want. The cards will be the space shuttle on the 747 transport plane and the second card will be of the Delta 4 heavy rocket launch at night. The price has not changed so each set will be $10.00." She can be contacted at Apw45warwick@aol.com
ITEM 2: A NEW ROCKET MAIL DEALER.
Joe Volutza recently contacted me and asked me to post a link to his commercial rocket mail site. Go here. Look under the heading Rocket Launches and a sub menu will appear. There you will find Rocket Mail. He also has an extensive inventory of space covers for sale.
ITEM 3: AND NOW THE MYSTERIES.
John Haynes contacted me just a couple days ago and sent me scans of some of the unknowns and mystery covers/labels in his extensive rocket mail collection. I was able to identify 2 of the 7 scans immediately. One pictured the two September 7, 1956, St. Louis, MO, “Ray 3”, 70th. Anniv. of APS covers with both the red rocket label and the blue rocket label which is mentioned in both Kaufmann's 1996 Pricing Supplement and my 2003 Kaufmann-Roales Rocket Mail List. The other was the September 9, 1961, Richland, WA, Richland Rocket Society, “Richland Rocket Society Rocket Mail” black on blue-gray label, “Flown By Rocket, Rocket Mail” cancel, Air Mail envelope. It was also mentioned in my 2003 Kaufmann-Roales Rocket Mail List. I had discussed both these covers in these pages several years ago.
That left 5 scans to explain. I will cover three of them in this month's column and the other 2 next month. If anyone can shed some light on these items please contact me and I'll pass the information to John.
The first item is pictured on the right. It is a 1923 regular issue 1 cent US postage stamp featuring Benjamin Franklin. It has a blue overprint "ROCKET FLIGHT". I have never seen this stamp before. I have no idea where or when or by who it was created.
The two covers below are likewise unknown to me. The one on the left is obviously intended as a joke. John says: "Clearly a joke but is there any relevance to the subject here? Why
was it produced and by whom? Any info?" The cover purports to be by a Scientific mission to study the natives on an island in the South Atlantic in 1964. The holes supposedly produced when "Damaged by sword - fish" are perfectly circular and it is addressed to Jacques Poli-Chinelle. Polichinlee is the French name for a character in an Italian Comedy play which later evolved into the puppet "Punch" of Punch & Judy fame. So there is little doubt that this is a joke cover...but does anyone know anything about it?
The cover on the right uses rocket mail labels which are trimmed versions of the ones issued at the ASDA Stamp Convention in New York in November, 1959. The edges were trimmed off to remove the information about the convention. I have never seen a New Zealand flown rocket mail cover, and as far as I know there never was one. I believe this cover was created by a resident of New Zealand who attended the ASDA Convention, became inspired and bought some of the ASDA labels. He then trimmed them and created a souvenir cover by using them and getting it cancelled at Half Moon Bay, Stewart Island, N.Z. with a rubber stamp imprint. John says: "I assume that 'MOON' refers to half moon bay - see pmk - rather than the orb in the sky. Again anybody know any background?". So I would consider this cover (until proven otherwise) as a "New Zealand Missile Age Souvenir" just as stated on the cover.
Any and all ideas or information on these three items would be appreciated.
(Added September 1, 2011) AN UNLISTED US ROCKET MAIL COVER.
By Paul A. Roales & Others.
ITEM 1: A NEW DISCOVERY.
A while back I acquired the unlisted rocket mail cover shown on the left on eBay. It is postmarked White Plains, NY on Aug. 24, 1969. Inside the flap on the back (not shown) is glued a small piece of paper about the size and shape of the "Rocket Mail" label on the front. On it is typed "12/2-7" with the 2 in red ink. I have no idea what that stands for. This cover is not in either the EZ Catalog or the 1996 Kaufmann Update. The dealer I bought it from told me he had acquired it from the Joe Nagl collection. He had bought a lot of Nagl's lower value covers before the rest were auctioned by Harmer-Schau early this year.
So I got on Google and began a search. I searched under "White Plains" plus "rocket" and finally came across A school yearbook site on the web which shows a picture of the 1959 rocket club at White plains, NY High School. It is at http://www.e-yearbook.com/yearbooks/White_Plains_High_School_Oracle_Yearbook/1959/Page_143.html
I then did a search on "White Plains High School" plus "rocket" and came across the biography of Dr. Warren Layfield, Ph.D. Retired NASA Scientist, who is currently the Section Advisor / Education Director of the Colorado Springs Rocket Society. Layfield is a retired rocket scientist who was a flight engineer with NASA. He helped on the shuttle Columbia's first flight. He had been a student at White Plains High School in 1959 and listed it in his Bio.
When I contacted him and asked him if he knew anything about this 1969 cover he told me: "Yes I was a student at White Plains High School and we did have a rocket club there. There were two rocket mail covers flown that month, the second was on August 28th." When I asked him for further details he replied: "I am in the process of getting information of the White Plains High School rocket club and hopefully the names of the students who sent and recive the rocket mails. It will take some time to gather the information and forwarded to you."
As I was discussing my search with George James of RRI he told me: "I remember from my days (1971-1973) at the National Air and Space Museum, that once when I mentioned that it would be nice to have one of our RRI fourteen-foot-long mail rockets as part of the NASM collection, one of the curators said "Oh amateur rocker mail. We already have one from a kid in New York State somewhere in storage. No, we do not need any more of that amateur stuff." Later, while still at NASM, I did see the newspaper clipping with a photo of the young man with somewhat of a Micrograin-type rocket, all crumpled up (as often was the case following a flight) that he shipped, and had been accepted, by NASM prior to my arrival in November 1971." Perhaps that was one of the two unlisted covers?
So this is a legitimate unlisted rocket mail cover. Hopefully Dr. Layfield can provide some more details on this cover and the ones flown on Aug. 28th of 1969.
(Added July 31, 2011) TWO LAUNCHES IN JULY.
By Paul A. Roales & Others.
ITEM 1: THE FIRST PUFFIN ISLAND LAUNCH OF 2011.
Darin Jackson of London launched his first Puffin Island rocket mail flight on July, 2. He flew 25 cards like the ones shown below. He says: "New Puffin Island Resumption of Rocket Post card issued on the 2nd of July 2011. The first rocket flight of the year took off from Puffin Island to the British Mainland at Lower Mucking at exactly 08.00.Twenty five cards were carried by the JZ V Mk 4 rocket. Each card had the new Rocket Post stamp number P85 cancelled with the special Puffin Island handstamp and a new Mit Raketen label was also added to the back.The front bears a new Definitive stamp with cancel,this card has the 70p value. Only 25 produced all certified by the postmaster/producer."
If you are interested in having Darin fly some cards for you or interested in buying somke of his cards he can be contacted at puffinea@hotmail.com
ITEM 2: A LAUNCH ON THE DAY OF THE FINAL SHUTTLE FLIGHT.
Sandy Warwick flew her most recent rocket mail on July 8th, which was also the launch date of the final US Shuttle flight. She says: "The Wa77-C rocket with twenty rocket mail cards lifted off at the same
moment as STS 135. The flight was perfect; the booster seperated at 1000' the
rocket flew to 6,100' and a speed of mach .9 . The twin parachutes
opened; and after 5 min 32 sec the rocket was recovered. there are ten two card
sets of rocket mail flown on this flight. Each set cost $10 dollars. Your
cards will be mailed soon. If you know anyone that would like there
payload flown next year contact me for details. I fly payloads for the scouts,
C.A.P. and stamp clubs ect."
Sandy can be reached at Apw45warwick@aol.com
E-mail feedback or questions to Paul Roales.
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Page and all contents copyright 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 & 2011 by Paul A. Roales