posted 12-26-2021 02:45 PM               

Space Cover 633: Soviet "Mars 1" club cachets for the launch date

The Soviet Union's first "partially-successfully" probe towards Mars took place on 1 November 1962 after two total failures in October of 1960 and a third failure in October 1962. This probe was the first to fly-by Mars but it had lost communications with Earth beforehand. They named this probe, "MARS 1." Because of secrecy, the Soviets did not let the Kniga (stamp issuing agency) know about launches in advance, and therefore all of the "official" Soviet covers were backdated after the successful launch, often after stamps created a month later, bore cancels showing the launch date.

In looking for answers it is still not known how to me how stamp clubs were able to learn of these launches, or if they all also had their covers back-dated. Few covers, if any, exist with addresses, as collectors didn't want the authorities to find out who was conducting "capitalistic ventures" by creating covers, and sending them to East Germany for cash. In East Germany covers were sold to buyers in other countries. There may have been collectors with friends or relatives who passed along information to someone in one or more clubs. It would be interesting to know.

There were covers for the MARS 1 launch, produced by 10 Soviet bloc stamp clubs which bear November 1, 1962 cancel dated covers for the launch of MARS 1 Examples of cancelled covers from 8 of those 10 cities are shown below. Missing are a second cancel from Magadan, and a cancel from Magnitogorsk.

In all there were 52 separate types of Rubber Stamped Cacheted (RSC) covers created for all phases of the MARS 1 mission. Of these I have located 48 for my collection. Here are the eight correctly dated launch covers which I have:

Kaliningrad; This is now a Russian Enclave between Poland and Lithuania. The quantity issued is unknown). All RSCs are in black.

Minsk: Now in Belarus. Quantity made is unknown. All RSCs are in red.

Dnjeprodershinsk: Now in the Ukraine. Quantity is unknown. RSCs exist in red and black.

Baku: Now in Azerbaijan. Quantity: 500. All RSCs are blue.

Magadan: Now in Siberian Russia. Quantities are 100 red; 100 green; 50 black; 50 blue, 50 carmine (from this, it may be inferred that there were fewer than 50 members in this club). Note that the stamp on this cover was created for Vostok 2, 3 and 4 flights, but was overprinted with the text, "1962 Earth-Mars 1. X1".

Lvov: Now in the Ukraine. Quantity was 1,000. All RSCs are violet.

Perm: Now located in Russia. Quantity 1,250. All RSCs are red. The club used this same club cachet for several following MARS 1 events.

Kaluga: Now located in Russia. Quantity 400. All RSCs are red.

Most of the information for the above came from the softbound, German language Astrophilatelic book, "SOVIET UNION 2 - Nebenstempel, Vignetten, Briefe," by J.R. Pfau in 1976. The book includes estimated values then, in Deutsch Marks.

posted 01-05-2022 03:45 PM               

Are their postal cancellations close-by or near their designated mission launch site origins at Baikonur or Tyuratam? With most all of our own Cape and KSC space covers processed on-site, are these club cachets processed in the same way in Russia?

It reminds me a little bit about Clyde Sarzin's space cover dealership. While he did offer many outstanding space cover issues at "on-site" postal locations of where the space feat actually occurred from, he also serviced covers in a New York city suburb (Port Washington), his business location, that was more than 1,000 miles away from an actual space event location on the Florida Space Coast.

If that being the case, why would there be a big interest in the Russian space club covers? Purely from a philately standpoint, not considering back-dating at the moment, were the space covers cancelled at a nearby post office that had some or any relationship to the cachet event and how far distance were the covers from their launch or other related space event locations?

Of course, though, there is nothing wrong with a city or town in Russia that simply wanted to commemorate a national space feat sponsored by their local stamp club. That's fine, but for me personally, I would still not want a space cover that didn't meet basic objectives as outlined above.

posted 01-05-2022 10:21 PM               

Club Cachet. Designed by local collectors club and applied to the envelopes and cards which already have a postmark. The club cachet cannot be used instead of the circular date stamp. It is important to note that the club cachet is frequently found as a cancel on maxim cards and covers. This is done as a favor and is considered collectible.

Since most Russian space shots are secret, and are not announced up to the successful completion of the launch, there is little opportunity a collector has to prepare covers in advance. Therefore you will find amazing variety of dates in the club cachets.

It has also been reported that a local philatelic club may receive permission from the Ministry of Communications in Moscow to have certain local town postmarks backdated for their cachets.

posted 01-09-2022 09:59 AM               

Collecting way back when and having an interest in Mars, gave us little to no means of following the earliest efforts to reach Mars. This is what existed and what those of us with an interest in Mars collected.