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

Lot Number: 50250

Shortcut to Lot: HA.com/6326*50250

V-2 Rocket Launch Cover with Attached Photograph, White Sands Proving Ground, July 25, 1948, with Railway Post Office Postmark. A cover bearing a printed photographic cachet showing the dramatic launch of a V-2 rocket at White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico. The image is captioned in manuscript, noting the U.S. Army Ordnance Department firing of July 25, 1948, when a captured German V-2 rocket, adapted for research, carried instruments aloft to photograph Earth's curvature. The envelope is franked with three 1¢ green George Washington stamps (Scott #804), tied by El Paso, Tex. Railway Post Office (RPO) cancelations. Addressed in manuscript to "Jerry Francis, El Paso, Texas." Apparently unlisted. Very fine.

These early postwar covers, produced near the White Sands Missile Range, mark a significant chapter in U.S. missile development. The V-2 tests, conducted with the assistance of Wernher von Braun and his German engineering team, laid the foundation for both American ballistic missile programs and the later space program. From the Family Collection of Jacques Bracke

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