Inside Linn’s: Blue Origin returns to flight in a big way

By Charles Snee

The March 25 issue of Linn’s Stamp News just landed on the presses and goes in the mail to subscribers Monday, March 11. And if you subscribe to Linn’s digital edition, you’re at the head of the line with early access Saturday, March 9. While you wait for your issue to arrive in your mailbox, enjoy these three quick glimpses of exclusive content available only to subscribers. 

Blue Origin returns to flight in a big way

Charles J. Vukotich Jr., in Exploring Astrophilately, brings readers up to date on the latest accomplishments of Blue Origin in space. He focuses his attention on several recent New Shepard missions that carried postcards into space that were then mailed back to the addressees following completion of the mission. For example, New Shepard 24 “flew 38,000 postcards, reported to have come from hospitals, such as Nemours Children’s Hospital in Orlando, Fla., and Dell Children’s Medical Center North Campus in Austin, Texas, and ‘from our international partners in Bulgaria,’ according to Blue Origin,” Vukotich said. Vukotich also shares some fascinating news regarding the collaboration between Blue Origin engineers and students from Van Horn, Texas, who created the Postcard Mailbox to Space.

First-day frustrations

In First-Day Covers, Lloyd de Vries expounds on two recent episodes related to FDCs that have frustrated him. The first has to do with an eBay listing for an FDC for the United States 1976 13¢ Georgia State Flag stamp that was removed by eBay “because the cover did not follow the website’s offensive material policy related to the Confederate battle flag,” according to de Vries. His second annoyance focuses on a collector’s futile efforts to obtain first-day postmarks for the U.S. Radiant Star coil stamp issued Feb. 19, President’s Day, when all post offices were closed. De Vries concludes his column with a “positive development” concerning the FDC catalogs by the late Michael A. Mellone. You’ll have to read the column to get those positive details.

Tip of the Week: 1916 provisional stamps from Kionga

In their Tip of the Week, Stamp Market Tips columnists Henry Gitner and Rick Miller recommend one of their favorites, “the set of four overprinted provisional stamps issued May 29, 1916, for the former Portuguese colony of Kionga (Scott 1-4).” The overprints and surcharges were applied to stamps of Lourenco Marques. “Most of the stock used to produce the provisional set was without gum,” Gitner and Miller explain. “Stamps with original gum are worth more.” Be sure to read the entire tip to learn what makes this quartet of stamps from Kionga special.

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