Booklet n° 1
Renato DICATI, Schiaparelli e l’esplorazione di Marte (2010) (in Italian)
[Schiaparelli and the Exploration of Mars]
Of all the worlds existing near the Earth, Mars is the most intriguing. Its brightness, its fast movement in the sky and its vivid red colour, have always engendered wonder and curiosity.
The first observations of Mars dating back three thousand years ago were performed by Babyl-onian and Egyptian astronomers in the near East and Chinese star gazers in the Far East.
The very readable booklet edited by Renato Dicati summarizes in thirty pages what international philately has told us about it in the last fifty years.
Richly illustrated with of over 90 colour pictures of stamps and covers, it helps us to retrace the history of the observations of Mars from the studies of Schiaparelli to explorations of the red planet in the last decades by the Russian and American probes, in relentless competition.
This challenging rivalry is referenced, with historical and scientific details and funny anecdotes by a skilful astrophysicist, with a great passion for astrophilately.
Issued to commemorate the Centenary of the death of Giovanni Schiaparelli, this booklet is embellished – in its last page – by the stamp devoted by Poste Italiane to the celebrated astronomer cancelled with the special postmark used on July 2nd, 2010 in Savigliano, Schiaparelli’s hometown.
Only 125 numbered copies have been produced so this is a genuine one-time collectible.
AS.IT.AF. – Italian Astrophilately Society, 2010, 32 pp. with Italian Schiaparelli Stamp cancelled of the first day of issue.
Book Review
- Coelum n° 142 – 2010, p. 73 (in Italian)
- Cronache Filateliche n° 375 – 2010, p- 89 (in Italian)
- www.vaccarinews.it (in Italian)
Booklet n° 2
Amore Rufini, Astronumismatica (2011) (in Italian)
[Astronumismatics]
Unusual and accurate study performed with skill by the impassioned collector Amore Rufini, who recently issued the book “Astrophilately in the history Storia. Fifty years of Astronautics 1957-2007”.
This time Rufini is vying with a new issue on which a systematic study was still missing. He tranfers to the world on numismatics the consolidated rules of Astrophilately which aims at studying the historical, technical and scientific aspects of the space programmes by using the only documents produced by the Countries which are “Protagonists” of the space missions. This short publication only takes into consideration the “space coins” issued by the Countries which are directly involved as actors of the space exploration. Or which participated with their own astronauts or facilities.
Those reviewed in this booklet are over fifty coins issued by USSR/Russia, USA, Poland, Germany, Bulgaria, Hungary, Cuba, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, France, Canada Ucraine and Austria.
A limited edition of only 100 items, individually numbered, has been produced.
Each copy is franked with the Gagarin stamp, cancelled the day of issue.
AS.IT.AF. – Italian Astrophilately Society, 2011, 16 pp.
with Italian Gagarin Stamp cancelled of the first day of issue.
Book Review
