British Empire - Day 6

1934-44 rocket mail, a very comprehensive collection mounted on approximately 50 pages of pioneer Stephen Smith rocket mail envelopes from Calcutta experimental rocket launches, comprising complete envelopes/rocketgrams (approx. 60) and many single labels/stamps. Including all the main rocket launches (including ship to shore and shore to ship rockets) and special cachets, such as “Rocket No 65 Live Stock” “The Star of India from Matpukur to Dhapa”, “John Winterton” (“conveying Miss Creepy (a snake), an apple and mail”), “Royal Silver Jubilee Rocketgram”, “Test Rocket No 124 Tiljilla May 7 (only 22 envelopes carried), “Compressed Air Projectile “Sub Silentio” Oct 44” (28 letters carried), “By Rocket Aeroplane The Tiddler Sep 37”, and much more. Also a wealth of special rocket mail vignettes, including Rocket Parcel Despatch Rupees 2 with red overprint “Quetta Earthquake Relief”, Coronation May 1937, “The Saturn Express Rocket Train Herbert Barber”, “Miss Fortune”, “T. Kimball”, “Marianne Kronstein”, “Test Rocket 166 Dick Turpin”, “The Rowland Hill Test Mail Rocket 172), “Martha Paganini No 189”, “The Liar”, and many more. Many envelopes uprated with Indian definitive stamps, and supplemented with old photographs of rockets and rocket launches, also one micrographic print newspaper bulletin 1931 marked “BY ROCKET MAIL” and signed S. Smith.

With many extremely scarce envelopes, incl. the blue “All-India Scouts Jamboree Feb 37 Rocket Despatch” vignette on cover with cachet “By R. 134 Dr R. Paganini” (Hopfenwieser SS-35), franked with 9p definitive stamp, and green Jamboree label on Jamboree commemorative cover with cachet “By R. 138 Princess Elizabeth” (SS-39a), also card flown with rocket 255 bearing orange vignette “Par Fusée” (Hopfenwieser SS-66; 5000 eur), and compressed Air Projectile “Lex Talionis” Nov 44 (Hopfenwieser SS-76; 2000 eur, only 19 carried), and several more. Cat. value for the envelopes and rocketgrams (excluding the many single labels featured in the collection) according to Hopferwieser 34.685 eur.

An exciting and colourful assembly that documents a particularly interesting and little-known dimension of airmail philately; an absolutely unparallelled collection nearly impossible to replicate today, including the very rare and hard to obtain war rocket mail of WWII.