Apollo-Soyuz Space Mission

Finished mounting three more pages in my Space Stamp Collection last night. These are the first three pages for the Apollo-Soyuz Space mission.

Specific Sports in Olympic Games Collection

As I work to build the pages in my Olympic Games collection I've come to the place where I want to change how I do things to improve the appearance - again. Originally I divided my collection into three parts: "Founding of the Modern Olympic Games", "Summer Olympic Games", and "Winter Olympic Games".

I subdivided the "Founding of the Modern Olympic Games" into sections containing stamps that commemorate Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the Modern Olympics. Stamps that depict the role of art in the Olympics. Stamps that highlight the Olympic hymn and associated people. Stamps that depict the opening Parade of Nations. Those stamps that feature the Olympic Rings. Stamps highlighting the Olympic Flag. Those depicting the doves of peace that are released at the beginning of each games. Those stamps dealing with the Olympic Torch Relay and the Lighting of the Olympic Flame. And a very small section that has the stamps highlighting the Olympic Presidents. Essentially, this collection is all about those stamps that focus on the things related to the founding of the Modern Olympics.

The Winter and Summer Olympics were separate collections subdivided according to the Olympic Year. But I've merged those two collections into one that I call "International Olympic Games Highlights", still subdivided according to Olympic Year. The winter and summer games are still separate as the dates of the games are different.

Now here is where the big change comes. I decided to separate the stamps in each Olympic Year according to the sports depicted on the stamps. So instead of keeping a country "set" of Olympic stamps together, I will break them out into specific sports during that Olympic year.

Then I add a little bit of background of each sport at the top of the page for context and interest. If I have stamps depicting a specific athlete then I create a separate page for him or her within the sport and add some biographical information for interest.

I'm beginning to enjoy the look much better.

International Space Station

I just got my new latest stamp acquisition in the mail today! This sheet is so awesome! If you hold it in the light just right the stamps, which are holograms, show up in three-D! This is a really cool sheet. The title of my space collection is "From Kitty Hawk to the International Space Station".  So this stamp sheet is the first stamp in that section and puts the period at the end of my collection. Not the end of my collecting space stamps, but now I have stamps commemorating Kitty Hawk and the International Space Station.

John Glenn Becomes First American Astronaut To Orbit The Earth!

On February 20, 1962 John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth. His spacecraft was named Friendship 7. Glenn made three orbits of the earth and was in space for four hours and fifty-six minutes.

Gemini Astronauts Honored on Jordanian Stamps

In 1965 Jordan issued a set of stamps to honor the Gemini Astronauts. The three flights were Gemini 6, 7, and 8.

Gemini 6 (December 15, 1965) - Thomas Stafford and Walter Schirra

Gemini 7 (December 4, 1965) - Frank Borman and James Lovell

Gemini 8 (March 16, 1966) - David Scott and Neil Armstrong

I really like these! A nice looking set of stamps!

Gemini 4

Tonight I decided it was time to wave our flag a little bit. So I made the page and mounted my stamps for the Gemini 4 flight on June 3, 1965. The highlight of which was the first American space walk by Edward H. White.

Vostok 3 & 4

And now, here is  Vostok 3 & 4...the Soviet Union's first attempt at a rendezvous of two spacecraft in orbit.