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COSMONAUTICS and SPACE AGE

CD 1962.jpg
CD SovHud, 1966.jpg

Pskov "club" covers have quite a weird appearance in modern astrophilately. In most cases they look like being overprinted using serviced covers as most postmarks are not correlated to the specific events. Those covers mainly commemorate Gagarin flight, Space age and Cosmonautics day, though some other events can be found. Many of the covers are really messy, heading in several directions at the same time. It looks like that was a private venture of several people (namely Konstantin Zaytsev from Nizhny Novgorod and Valery Gulkov from Pskov) and not real “club” issues. I consider them awkward creatures but nevertheless like them for their unusual outfit.  

ISRAEL in SPACE .... 1961

 

One of the Israeli 'fairy tales' targeted to impress Egypt was of first Israeli space rocket launched on July 5, 1961. Widely reported in Israeli press the rocket called Shawit 2 or Shavit II (Heb. - 'שביט ב) was nothing more than a simple solid propellant single stage body similar to early meteorological rockets. Obviously there was no kind of space achievement but pure propaganda. All the details were highly classified till 1980s. To commemorate the event, Israeli Stamp Club issued special covers postmarked on the date of launch - 5.7.1961.

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