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[b]Space Cover 754: Metered Postage[/b] Above is a cover metered at the Northrop Aircraft Plant in Hawthorne, CA (currently a SpaceX plant), where the M2F2 lifting body rocketplane was built, on the date of the M2F2's first flight, July 12, 1966. Northrop had customized the meter with a common mantra in the aerospace industry in the 1960's – "Zero Defects". The cachet was designed and applied by the Northrop Stamp Club. More SCOTW 648. So what's a meter? Per the USPS website: [i]Postage meters are postage printing machines or systems leased by authorized providers for use in your home or office. Meters print postage directly onto your mail or onto a meter tape, which you affix to your mail. Postage meters can be used for all mail services except periodicals. Metered mail must have the actual date of mailing. Metered mail does not require a postmark as the postmark information (city, state, ZIP Code, and date) is included within the meter strip.[/i] So the metered postage represents both the stamp and the cancellation on a cover, like the above. And quite often, companies would customize their meter strips (like above) to fit their product line. These can really dress up a cover collection! Here are a couple other interesting meters: McDonnell Aircraft (makers of the Mercury and Gemini capsules) in St. Louis put out meters for the crewed Mercury orbital flights, Gemini flights, and some Apollo flights. The MA8 Sigma 7 cover is shown above. McDonnell customized the meter to include an artist's impression of a Mercury capsule in orbit, with the words "Project Mercury, McDonnell, Manned Orbital Flight". The cachet is a knockoff of the artwork from the Orbit Cachet for that flight, and I'm not sure if it was applied by McDonnell or someone else. More info on the McDonnell meters can be found in SCOTW 229. The Manned Space Flight Network's Goldstone station in Barstow, CA had a spiffy meter that they applied to covers for missions they supported. The meter was customized with a drawing of the Goldstone antenna, and the words "Goldstone Space Communications Station, NASA/JPL, Deep Space Instrumentation Facility, Earth's Link With Deep Space". The cover above was metered at Goldstone for the Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS) A (later designated LandSat 1) launch on July 23, 1972. I'm not sure why someone also applied the Goldstone cachet for Apollo support (in blue) to it as well. What other metered space covers are out there? If you have some favorites, let's post them!
[i]Postage meters are postage printing machines or systems leased by authorized providers for use in your home or office. Meters print postage directly onto your mail or onto a meter tape, which you affix to your mail. Postage meters can be used for all mail services except periodicals. Metered mail must have the actual date of mailing. Metered mail does not require a postmark as the postmark information (city, state, ZIP Code, and date) is included within the meter strip.[/i]
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