Daylilies from Canada…

 

 

Date of Issue : March 1, 2012

Two brilliant, colourful and exquisite daylilies (Hemerocallis) grace the seventh issue in Canada Post’s beloved flower series.

 

Daylilies

The Daylily (Hemerocallis) was long placed in the Lily family (Liliaceae), but is now considered to belong in the plant family Hemerocallidaceae. This term, from the Greek words meaning “beauty” and “day,” alludes to the fact that each flower lasts for just one day. Since there are many flower buds on each flower stalk and many stalks in each cluster, the overall flowering period is usually several weeks long. The flowers of most species open at sunrise and wither atsunset, often replaced by another on the same stalk the next day. Although not commonly used for arrangements, daylilies make good cut flowers, as new blossoms continue to open over several days.

Originally, daylilies could be found only in yellow, orange, and reddish-brown. Today, colours range from near-white, to yellow, orange, pink, red, purple, blue and more. While the roadside yellow or orange daylilies—known to hybridizers as Hemerocallis fulva (or Hemerocallis fulva Europa)—are forms of the cultivated types that ‘escaped’ and now grow wild, all modern daylilies have evolved through a complicated history of hybridization.

: Canada Post

Club News

Latest issue of Vadophil

Latest issue of Vadophil, Quarterly News Bulletin of Baroda Philatelic Society, edited by Prashant Pandya and Timir R Shah is available online.Special feature of this issue are Report on Gujpex 2011, Articles, & Auction.

View : Vadophil # 128-129 (Oct. 2011 / Jan 2012)

 

Search continues for secret stamp honoring John Glenn's historic spaceflight 

 

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.

 

4-cent 'Project Mercury' postage stamp sold in 1962 was a surprise

2/20/2012 10:43:38 AM ET

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.

"The U.S. Post Office Department signaled the first orbital flight of a United States astronaut today with the issuance of a commemorative stamp, placed on sale throughout the country on the exact hour Astronaut John Glenn's historic flight was officially completed," the department stated. "It is the first time in history that a previously unannounced commemorative stamp was issued simultaneously with the event it memorializes."

As news of the stamp spread over radio and television, the public began lining up at their closest post offices that had stock of the now no longer secret issue. Collectors in particular drove many miles to have their blank envelopes postmarked with the surprise stamp, creating a collectible for that first day's release and the historic space flight it honored.

Without a way to coordinate nationwide, collectors couldn't know however if such "first day covers" existed for all 305 stations. To this day, 50 years later, as many as 20 cities are still missing examples.  Read More…

: Hemant Kulkarni, Milwaukee USA

Golden Katar Philatelic Exhibition – 2012

 

: Dr Paresh Upadhyaya

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A stamp for Mars?

 

The competition began !

CNES, French Space Agency, and the French Post Office, recognizing the interest of collectors, especially younger ones, for space are launching a competition to create a stamp which will make its route to the planet Mars! The French Post offers young people to invent a visual design of the stamp to write to the "Red Planet".

The design competition takes place from January 30 to April 16, 2012, for youth from 10 to 17 years. Numerous prizes are await of the winner, including a trip for two to Guyana provided by CNES and the opportunity to attend a launch of the Ariane rocket!

The design of the stamp to Mars can be achieved through different techniques such as collage, painting, drawing with crayons, markers.

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Press Clippings

 

 

 

: Ashwani Dubey - Gorakhpur

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Stamps commemorating the end of the Space Shuttle era…

 

Date of Issue : 21 July 2011

On July 21, 2011, the day the Shuttle Atlantis touched down for the last time, the Marshall Islands Postal Service issued seven new stamps commemorating the end of the Space Shuttle era. Since its beginning in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has been responsible for many remarkable accomplishments. For example, on May 5, 1961, NASA sent Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut, into space.

Then, just eight years later, on July 16, 1969, NASA launched Apollo 11, carrying astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins on a journey to the Moon. In 1973, NASA was responsible for launching Skylab, a space-borne laboratory which circled the earth for nearly seven years. However, NASA’s next project—the famed Space Shuttle—is perhaps its greatest accomplishment so far. For 30 years beginning with the launch of Columbia on April 12, 1981, the Space Shuttle was the workhorse of America’s space program, bringing America as close as it has ever come to routine space travel.

For information about this issue,  contact the Stamps and Philatelic Center of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, One Unicover Center, Cheyenne, Wyoming 82008-0021. Information may also be obtained by calling 1-800-443-4225 or ordering on-line at www.unicover.com/hprlrms.htm.

NASA’s final shuttle launch marks end of collector's era

Ron DiIulio, director of the astronomy program, has been chronicling the progress of the space program through the collection of autographed, commemorative envelopes and stamps for nearly half a century.

Now DiIulio will be seeking out the final pieces of his collection.Since the 1960s, DiIulio has collected artifacts that document most of the space programs’ “firsts,” including NASA’s first landing tests, the first time Americans entered space, groundbreaking for Kennedy Space Center, the first flight of a female astronaut and more. DiIulio even has stamps commemorating America’s space program from Colombia, Geneva, Switzerland and the Ajmer region of India.

“Pretty much everyone has a collection of something,” said DiIulio. “Having artifacts that can tell the story of the space program is invaluable. These kinds of items can really get people excited: it’s all about the power of imagination.”

“The final launch will be the end of an era,” said DiIulio. “We built this impressive fleet of ships, and now we are putting them on display and essentially ending America’s physical exploration of space. I’m glad that I’ll be able to share the history of the program with future generations through my collection.”

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Atlantis lands, NASA's shuttle program ends

 

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