About Us

The soviet space covers present a very interesting part of astrophilately. Sputnik, Gagarin, rocket – all of these words at the turn of the 50–60s have become symbols of space achievements. Stamps, envelopes, postcards, badges became part of the active propaganda of the achievements of cosmonautics of the USSR. In fact, it was created a very special design, well conveys the spirit of the time – a romantic time of the conquest of space

However, despite the wealth of factual material, released reference books and catalogs on the subject is clearly not enough.

Of course, the space theme is vast and therefore the objective of this site is quite local - to structure and visualize information concerning covers, cards, special cancellation related to the initial period of the Soviet space program. Written on the subject on the one hand a lot, and on the other there is a distinct lack of illustrative material. One of the main tasks of the website – the best visualization of the material. There is a Russian proverb: "Better to see once than hear a hundred times". Will be given not only descriptions, but also presented the real images of the envelopes, cards, various options for special cancellation and other interesting philatelic material.

Another task is to give information about current market prices for collectibles. To estimate space envelopes and cards were used the most relevant russian catalogues and information about prices of the main russian and foreign Internet-auctions.

The site has 8 main sections, which are presented in the top menu: NEWS, COVERS, CANCELLATIONS, CARDS, CLUB COVERS, EXHIBITS, SELLERS/LINKS, ABOUT US

The NEWS section

The NEWS section contains news information about the completion of the main sections and changes on the website. Also in this section sometimes published interesting information about sales at auctions

Section COVERS

In this section you will find the Illustrated stamped covers, which were issued by the Ministry of Communications of the USSR in 1957-1967 dedicated to space and prices for them from several Russian catalogues. Now the most relevant catalogue is the catalogue of V. Ivashkin " Illustrated stamped covers of the USSR", released in 2016.

Under the description of the envelopes on the website you can find prices from this catalogue. All prices indicated in rubles. On 1 august 2017, 1 US$ is approximately equal to 60 rubles

Section CANCELLATIONS

This page presents all official space cancellations of the Ministry of Communications of the USSR 1958-1967. Presented a lot of different options of cancellations.

Section CARDS

This section contains 6 subsections:

unmarked postcards (1957-1962)

stamped cards (1958-1967),

souvenir sets /stamped cover and card/ (1964-1991),

one-side marked cards (1961),

invitations for the celebrations of the cosmonautics Day (1962-1974),

passes to the Red Square for the meetings of the first Soviet cosmonauts (1959-1968)

Section CLUB COVERS

Here you will find many so-called “club covers”, which were produced in the Soviet Union by local societies of philatelists. The prices are in dollars

Section EXHIBITS

In this section you will find the wonderful philatelic exhibits of many well-known philatelists

Section SELLERS/LINKS

This section contains information about the sellers of astrophilately and the most interesting Internet resources

We are planning a steady expansion of information provided in the sections and creating new sections devoted to various types of collectibles in the Soviet space program.

Regards.

SovietSpaceCovers team

e-mail: vostokcollection@gmail.com