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Unusual and rather scarce mail: 1971 Rocket mail, Nr. 1 of a total 30 sent. Hand-signed by the important Austrian inventor Friedrich Schmidl who became famous world wide.
Attached is a yellow sticker "2. 2. 1931 Postrakete "V7" - 2.2. 197 Apollo 14 Mond" - canceled by a "BRONX N,Y, 17" - cancellation.
Red typewriting " 1932 "V7".....1971 "Apollo 14" on the way to the Moon".
At the reverse is a black Graz-Kroisbach arrival mark.
The card has been hand-signed by Schmiedl. The item comes with a Certificate of Authenticity.
The Austrian engineer Friedrich Schmiedl fired the world's first postal rocket on 2nd February 1931. He also developed a two stage rocket and initially received the co-operation of the Austrian Postal authorities. Schmiedl ( 1902- 1994) developed the idea of a postal rocket during WW1. The population of Przemysl in Poland, who were under siege by Russian troops tried to send messages into unoccupied territory by means of primitive paper balloons. This tailed since nearly all the balloons fell into Russian hands. A rocket, even a simple one, would carry the mail thought Schmiedl at the time. This idea remained with him. Ten years later he had made enough preparations to take the World into the realms of rocket mail.
In June 1928 he attempted flight tests of instrumented rockets that were to be launched from stratospheric balloons - not very successfully.
In 1930 he launched further rockets, perfecting a parachute recovery system. His first successful post office rocket on 2 February 1931 transported 100 letters from Schoeckel to Sankt Radegund. He began with what he called 'regular mail service' in September 1931 with launch of his G1 rocket from Hochtroetsch to Semriach. Schmiedl dreamed of using enormous rockets to transport long-range mail from Vienna to Budapest and Graz to Budapest, or to deliver mail to remote oases in North Africa. But the Austrian Post office obtained a law prohibiting further rocket mail activities in 1934, followed by a general government ban on private rocket development in 1935. After the second world began, he destroyed his rocket work, not wanting it to be used for military purposes. Similarly he refused an offer after the war to go to the United States and conduct further rocket research.
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