Mercury

Colorful Years, Page 71 (RE-2)

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The first stamp on the second row of this album page commemorates the Mercury Project, a NASA program for sending a spacecraft into orbit around the Earth with a pilot onboard. This project was to counter the space exploration efforts of the Soviet Union. On April 12, 1961, the Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Gargarin did a single orbit. In May 1963, John Glenn piloted the first U.S. manned orbit. This led eventually to the Apollo program that put humans on the Moon.

As a kid seeing this stamp, I didn’t understand what was meant by the name, Mercury. There wasn’t an internet to check for facts. I could have looked in an encyclopedia or asked someone, but I wasn’t that eager to know. As for history class in school, we rarely covered the Twentieth Century – the school year ended each year just as we got to it. I assumed the NASA mission was to go to Mercury, but since the stamp showed the spacecraft in space, they must have never made it. It’s somewhat comical how ignorant we can be as children.

Note

As a boy, before I was introduced to stamp collecting, I was in awe of these stamps. They were interesting and beautiful. At this point, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing were primarily printing stamps in multiple colors. They’ll use more colors in years to come, but I like this level of coloring: just a few and relying primarily on the art than the flashiness of colors.

Contains 17 spots: own 17 – 17 unused, 0 used.
Page is finished.
Album or Web Page Last changed Apr 25, 2025

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Stamp Details

The table below lists information about the stamps shown on this page of Lighthouse’s stamp album. For more details about a particular stamp, click on its description. That will take you to the related web page of Colnect.

spot	own	catalog	subject	description	comment
1.1	✓	1191	New Mexico Statehood	4c (jan 1962) comm., multicolor
2.1	✓	1193	Project Mercury Friendship 7 Capsule	4c (feb 1962) comm., multicolor
2.2	✓	1200	Atomic Energy Act Senator Brien McMahon	4c (jul 1962) comm., violet
2.3	✓	1194	World United Against Malaria	4c (mar 1962) comm., blue & bistre
3.1	✓	1192	Arizona Statehood	4c (feb 1962) comm., multicolor
3.2	✓	1195	Charles Evans Hughes	4c (apr 1962) comm., black
3.3	✓	1196	Space Needle & Monorail	4c (apr 1962) comm., red & dark blue
3.4	✓	1202	Sam Rayburn	4c (sep 1962) comm., dark blue & red brown
4.1	✓	1197	Louisiana Statehood	4c (apr 1962) comm., multicolor
4.2	✓	1198	The Homestead Act	4c (may 1962) comm., slate blue
4.3	✓	1199	Girl Scouts	4c (jul 1962) comm., pink red
5.1	✓	1203	Dag Hammarskjold	4c (oct 1962) comm., multicolor
5.2	✓	1201	Apprenticeship	4c (aug 1962) comm., black
5.3	✓	1204	Dag Hammarskjold	4c (nov 1962) comm., multicolor
6.1	✓	1206	Higher Education	4c (nov 1962) comm., black & blue green
6.2	✓	1205	Wreath & Candles	4c (nov 1962) comm., multicolor
6.3	✓	1207	Breezing Up Winslow Homer	4c (dec 1962) comm., multicolor

Footnotes

• Spot refers to the postion of the stamp on the album page (e.g., 3.2 indicates row 3, position 2).

• Amt. is an abbreviation for the face amount of the stamp.

• Own indicates the stamp status: ✓ for unused; ✗ for used or canceled; ⭑ signifies I ordered one; ; ✨ indicates it was bought recently; ✠ means an auction bid is pending; and ◎ is used, and it costs too much for unused.

• To search by catalog number, go to the search box and enter it in the catalog number box. However, it’s a bit broken; I need to fix it.