Auction Name: 2025 December 11 - 12 Space Exploration Signature® Auction

Lot Number: 50021

Shortcut to Lot: HA.com/6326*50021

Yuri Gagarin Autograph Postcard, Signed Twice, to General Nikolai Kamanin and Originally from Kamanin's Personal Collection, postmarked December 30, 1961, with Certificate of Authenticity from PSA/DNA. A chromolithographed New Year postcard, 4.125 x 5.75", printed by the Ministry of Communications of the USSR, 1961. On the front, a child cosmonaut rides a red rocket inscribed "СССР" through space, bearing a fir branch; printed greeting "С НОВЫМ ГОДОМ!" (Happy New Year!). On the reverse, Gagarin has written in ink a holiday message to General Nikolai Petrovich Kamanin and his wife, Maria Ivanovna, reading (translated):

"Dear Nikolai Petrovich and Maria Ivanovna! Congratulations on the New Year 1962! I wish you good health, much success in your work, and all the best! - Gagarin."

Addressed in Gagarin's hand to Kamanin's Moscow residence on Serafimovich Street and again signed by Gagarin as sender. A rare and historic New Year greeting sent only eight months after Gagarin's pioneering Vostok 1 flight, warmly addressed to the officer who trained and oversaw the first generation of cosmonauts. Fine, with clear postmark and signature. PSA/DNA COA included.

This design, by artist G. V. Shubina, is among the most recognizable of early-1960s Soviet New Year postcards, celebrating the nation's pride in its space achievements following Gagarin's flight in April 1961. The imagery merges the cosmic optimism of the space age with the childlike innocence of holiday tradition, a recurring theme in Khrushchev-era propaganda art. From an important collection of Soviet-era Space history

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