Any Balloon Mail Floating Around?

I've had this cover in my collection for a while. It marks the first around the world balloon flight in 1959. I'm not clear on whether it actually traveled on the flight or just commemorated it.

Does any forum member have more information about this? I'd be interested in seeing other balloon covers as well.

I think the consensus is that these were never actually flown and are just souvenir covers. A group of four of them, two from the US and 2 from Ghana were recently sold at a major auction house and brought $35 for the four of them.

These were unmanned balloons that were intended for meteorological measurements with the idea of releasing large numbers of them to be able to see the weather around the world (pinging them off of satellites). There is some discussion of them being also used for spying missions, but I am not at all quick to go along with that romanticized idea about them.

GregAlex, In the 50's and 60's I used to work for my dad min his electronics company. Through this I was involved in quite a batch of different sports in the Netherlands, and ballooning was one of them. One person in particular I remember very well. His name was Jan Boesman and besides being a balloonist he was also an ardent philatelist. He would always carry mail on his "flights" and some of these can still be found on E-Bay, Bidstart and Delcampe. One sale on E-Bay that ended is # 390966537126.

Peter

This is one of my balloon covers that involves Jan Boesman that Peter mentions. Originally meant to be "ballooned" to Paris it was delayed at Dover due to weather conditions and ultimately continued its flight by RAF jet.

Scotzm, thank you for posting! Brings back nice memories!

Peter