Outer Space – Global Postcard Sales

Total: 31 postcards

Socorro, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Very Large Array
Unused card. Grade: 2

Code: 10132037
Price: $2.00
Socorro, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, nine antennas
Unused card. Grade: 1

Code: 10132038
Price: $2.00
Socorro, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, transporter
We wonder if postcards like this are even allowed now. Unused. Grade: 2

Code: 10132039
Price: $2.00
Outer space cartoon (PR China)
Unused card. It says: Good friends for life. Grade: 1

Code: 20307549
Price: $1.00
Moon (USA card)
Mailed with a 98-cent stamp in 2010, we don’t know if this is an official NASA postcard or not but it shows a “View of a full Moon photographed from the Apollo 11 spacecraft.” There’s a blurry Huntsville postmark. Maybe instead of “global postcards” we should call ourselves “universal postcards”. Grade: 1

Code: 30000001
Price: $2.00
Sojourner on Mars (from USA)
What makes this card special is not so much the card itself but that it was mailed in 2011 with four space-themed USA stamps (two are uncancelled). Grade: 2

Code: 30000025
Price: $4.00
Voice of America, Earth from Apollo 17
Three of these unused cards are available, issued by Voice of America during the height of the U.S. space exploration programme. Something you might not immediately notice (because it’s on the reverse, not in the photo) is that the caption is in Swahili. That is almost certainly why (or because) the photo is of Africa. Grades: 1

Code: 30000037
Price: $4.00
Andromeda Galaxy
Made in, and mailed from, Ukraine in 2012 with stamp and illegible postmark. Grade: 1

Code: 30000121
Price: $1.00
Orion Nebula
View from the Hubble Space Telescope on a card mailed from the USA in 2012 with $1.05 stamp and heavy postmark. Grade: 2

Code: 30000141
Price: $2.00
Eclipse
As a rule this website does not include Zazzle cards (feel free to search out what those are), not because they are not nice but just because. We make an exception this time because this otherwise unused card has a USA Forever stamp of an eclipse pasted on. No other writing, so if you are in the USA and were inclined to mail a card to someone there, you could basically use this one. Our usual grading standards apply becuse of the stamp: Grade: 3

Code: 30000291
Price: $0.50
Telling a Story to the Stars (Taiwan)
Mailed in 2020, with stamp and postmark. Grade: 1

Code: 30000297
Price: $1.00
Ancient Chinese Paintings … Syzygy of the Sun … (set of 6) (Maximum Cards) (Taiwan)
First, you might compare this with our entry 20325409, which was in effect Part One of this series from 2020. This latest version was issued on 19 May 2021, and bears the exact title: “Maximum Cards of Ancient Chinese Paintings Postage Stamps: ‘Syzygy of the Sun, Moon, and the Five Planets’ by Xu Yang, Qing Dynasty (II)”. Our scan shows the cardboard cover and two of the six cards in the set. Grade: 1

Code: 30400301
Price: $17.00
Maximum Cards of Ancient Chinese Paintings Postage Stamps: “Syzygy of the Sun, Moon, and the Five Planets (set of 6) (Taiwan)
Such a long title — and we have even abbreviated it — for a nice set of six maximum cards, of which our scan shows you two. Issued on 11 November 2020 by Chunghwa Post, and with a cardboard cover. And in case you didn’t know the word “syzygy” (we sure didn’t), Wikipedia tells us it means “In astronomy, a syzygy is a roughly straight-line configuration of three or more celestial bodies in a gravitational system.” Grade: 1

Code: 30400556
Price: $17.00
Alan B. Shepard, Jr., American Astronaut (Maximum Card) (Moldova)
Sometimes we wonder why national philatelic units can’t stay closer to home. Maybe Mr. Shepard looked down on Moldova as he passed overhead? In any event, it’s not the postcard’s fault. This maximum card was issued in 2011 and mailed in 2014, with another stamp and two postmarks on the back. A nice addition to your collection of Outer Space postcards. Grade: 1

Code: 31200174
Price: $6.00
Space flight activity, DPR Korea (set of 8)
This alone should prompt us to open a new “Outer Space” theme category but for now we will let this set of eight cards (attached in fold-out accordion style) speak for itself. Our scan shows the front and back cover, each of which is one of the eight cards. Other views include scenes in launch facilities, and rockets in various stages of performance, as you can see on that back cover. Captioned entirely in Korean. Grade: 1

Code: 33300055
Price: $54.00
Rochester Museum and Science Center, Strasenburgh Planetarium Astro-Screen (New York)
Unused Dexter Press card 49553-C. Grade: 3

Code: 34400136
Price: $1.00
Adler Planetarium and Astronomical Museum (Chicago)
Unused card but it has a number inked above the postage area. Grade: 3

Code: 34400165
Price: $1.00
First Television Picture from Space
Mailed in 2021 with stamp and two overlapping Missouri postmarks, this was the first television image of Earth from outer space in 1960, courtesy of NASA. Postmark ink transfer on the front. Grade: 2

Code: 40600001
Price: $4.00
Uranus
Mailed from Cyprus, not Uranus, in 2021 with two stamps and a Priority label, but no postmark. Grade: 4

Code: 40600002
Price: $1.00
Meteorite (Arizona, USA)
Unused, very old, B&W real-photo postcard with everything you could want to know in the caption on the front. Grade: 1

Code: 40600003
Price: $12.00
The Moon
Another of our rare exceptions to listing self-published postcards, this one by Cristina Harabagiu in Romania. Unused. Grade: 1

Code: 40600004
Price: $1.00
Astronomical Phenomena (3D) (set of 7) (Hong Kong)
This unused set is Hongkong Post’s “Postage Prepaid Picture Card Series No. 52,” with pre-printed postage corresponding to the photos, and all with 17 March 2015 first day of issue postmarks. These are 3D cards. Our scan shows two of the fronts and one of the reverses, for your reference, but there are seven different cards in each set, and four sets are available. By the way, these are really sturdy and quite heavy. Grades: 1

Code: 40600005
Price: $29.00
Space flight activity (set of 8) (DPR Korea)
Our scan shows the front and back cover, each of which is one of the eight cards (fold-out, accordion style) in this set. Other views include scenes in launch facilities, and rockets in various stages of performance, as you can see on that back cover. Captioned entirely in Korean. Grade: 1

Code: 40600006
Price: $54.00
China space flight (set of 2) (DPR Korea)
You might think these unused cards were Chinese, but no. The set of two cards is bilingual Korean/Chinese on the fronts and on the genuinely HUGE pre-printed stamps on the backs. Grade: 1

Code: 40600007
Price: $16.00
Hong Kong Stamp Expo 2004 (set of 2) (DPR Korea)
DPRK ranges even further afield by choosing Chinese astronauts as the subject of cards issued for this 2004 stamp expo in Hong Kong. You might compare these two cards with those in entry 20312172: bilingual Korean/Chinese texts on the front and in the very large pre-printed stamps on the backs. Grade: 1

Code: 40600008
Price: $16.00
Outer space, and Constellation (DPR Korea)
Proving once again how little we understand, the Korean-only caption on the back (은 하계) translates as “The Summer”. Adding to our interest, the pre-printed postage features Boötes, one of the 48 constellations described by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy. Grade: 1

Code: 40600009
Price: $6.00
Soviet astronauts (set of 2) (Maximum Cards) (DPR Korea)
Issued in 1988, two maximum cards, one (with Yuri Gagarin on the stamp) captioned “Spaceship” in English and Korean, and the other (with Valentina Tereshkova) captioned “Work in space” in English, and Korean. Grade: 1

Code: 40600010
Price: $12.00
Outer space theme (set of 4) (Maximum Cards) (DPR Korea)
A set of four maximum cards from 2001. They have wonderful stamps, long (Korean-only) captions, and a URL that made us curious, so we went to it. Save yourself that trouble, trust us. Grade: 1

Code: 40600011
Price: $20.00
Innovation in Science and Technology (IV) (Set of 5) (PR China)
The cardboard cover for this set of five maximum cards appears in the top right of our scan, along with most of three of those five cards. It’s China National Philatelic set MC-138 from 2023, and the cards show experimental rice, the Mars Rover, a cosmic ray observatory, a satellite, and … artificial starch. Definitely an outer-space theme. Grade: 1

Code: 40600012
Price: $19.00
China 2008 Astronauts (set) (PR China)
This is a booklet of several (5 or 6, they defy counting) postcards of individual Chinese astronauts, alternating with stamp sheetlets of those same astronauts, and flimsy divider sheets. Issued by China National Philatelic Corporation in 2008 or 2009, with a taped original price sticker on the front–we have deleted the Yuan price in the photo. We cannot guarantee that all the original pages are there–we think so, but aren’t sure–and some of the pages are beginning to detach, as they were not well-bound. The upper photo in the scan is the cover; the lower photo is one postcard. Very hard to grade, so we will just say “3”.

Code: 40600013
Price: $39.00
Alaska from Space
Unused. Grade: 1

Code: 40600014
Price: $2.00

Total: 31 postcards