The Merchandise GuideAnnual 1975
The Merchandise Guide
| From Sputnik to Saturn, through Surveyor, Soyuz and Skylab, the race to space has--in one certain way--involved practically every single state and country in the whole world; Afghanistan and Ajman, Zaire and Zambia, everyone in between. They've all had a hand in it--through the simple medium of the postage stamp! |
Technically speaking, Year One of the Space Age was 1957 when, on October 4th, the Russians launched Sputnik One, the first arti- ficial satellite ever to go into earth's orbit. As for the beginning of the 'space race' on stamps, that was in 1962, when Albania issued their Sputnik commemorative. Since then, the release of stamps dealing with all aspect of man's journey |
beyond his natural environment has snowballed to literally thousands of issues, many of them cheap and easy to obtain, others which have already become expensive rarities. The reason isn't difficult to see. Stamps are big business, and with the rise, over the last few decades, of interest in 'thematics'--stamps dealing with specific subjects--the collector has |
been fair game for issuing authorities. Actually, the collecting of space stamps is a fascinating and extremely worthwhile hobby. On the one hand there's the satisfaction of having an extremely colorful picture gallery of pocket size--one that at least has the poten- tial of increasing its value in time. On the other, you have at your fingertips a ready reference of |
