Rocket Mail! (Cuban, For Starters)

RUSS SAID:



A quick calculation.
500 meters = 1640.41995 ft.

That's better than I expected actually after reading up on Rocket Mail. It would seem plausible but rife with problems. That's a scary thought actually; Rockets adorned with mail almost aimlessly flying over rooftop! lol

For the period 1928-1939 there are hundreds of rocket mail items, our FIP Large Gold exhibit, "Rocket Mail", shows 7-frames of flown items. There are covers and vignettes for each of the three forerunner (1,3 & 8 Oct)







Cuban flights as well as covers and cards for the 15 Oct flight.

How did I miss this? This is some beautiful stuff, chabro.

An unusual rocket mail item I just picked up.

It was posted in Liechtenstein, then carried over to Switzerland where it was sent via rocket mail.

Zuckers rocket experiment

around 2min 50 seconds in
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UHoMMzlvnU

One from the UK. A 30 second flight across a river. Very contrived but still a flown rocket cover

Never let it be said I allowed a simple thread to go by without dragging Yugoslavia into it somehow:



The special postmarks seem to have been designed by
a) a nine year old child or
b) someone who'd never seen a rocket or
c) someone who HAD seen a rocket but wasn't going to risk the SDB arresting him for revealing state defence secrets.

My only other Rocket Mail cover. This was rocket flown on 25th June 1967 by the Leicester Rocket Society and has a rouletted 6d rocket mail stamp which is tied to the cover by a red Borough of Eccles date stamp. This is cover #9 of a total of 441 "flown"...(I saw cover #6 on ebay recently for $30). Some covers have what is reported to be "singe marks" on the left hand side although how that happened is a mystery to me

These have been sitting around for a while and I thought I would pass them along to someone who might appreciate them. I know that they were used on 1936 Rocket Mail from McAllen, Texas To Reynosa, Mexico and a 1936 rocket flight from Greenwood Lake NJ.

I thought I would throw them on ebay but have no idea what to ask, I have found some covers from these events but no comparables for single unused stamps. Does anyone have any ideas as to what I should list them for or do I just toss them into the bargain box?
Thanks in advance
Don

"... I'm surprised that in 1959 the postmaster of USPS considered missile mail the future. I cannot imagine it could be then profitable to use a rocket to carry mail when it get damaged every time it's landing."

Today, many smaller UAVs land by 1) shutting down their engine, and 2) deploying a parachute.

Utterly & completely reusable.

The Coming Thing is to make the parachute steerable, so that the landing can be controlled in a cross-wind.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Does anyone have a copy of the Ellington-Zwisler "Rocket Mail Catalog"? I will need details on 2 catalog numbers...