Mark Joseph Jochim

Welcome to the 21st installment of “Cancelling My Life” in which I am taking a look at postmarked items in my collections, starting from shortly before my birth on December 3, 1965. For a more detailed look at my personal philatelic history, take a look at the first entry here.

Today, we are looking at . . .

On Friday, December 3, 1965, at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Texas, U.S.A., a young boy was born to unknown parents of Spanish and German extraction. At some point after that date, possibly as late as early January 1966, that baby was adopted through Hope Cottage by Mr. Ronald Joseph Jochim and his wife Carol Anne Jochim née Chapman. That boy was me!

My birth occurred 21,915 days ago. The Earth has experienced 244 seasons of weather since then.. I was born at 7:30 in the morning on that 60 years ago date so I am now 525,972 hours old or 31,558,320 minutes at the time I am typing these words. It isn’t often that I feel those 31.5 million minutes but if I do it is usually upon arrival at my school in Thailand following a 15-minute walk from my home and a 5-story climb up the stairs to my homeroom. I am healthy enough that I only feel that dull pain in my upper thighs on rare occasions.

Of course, there were more momentous occurrences on that particular date that I would rather talk about. For example, The Beatles commenced their final UK tour with two performances at the Odeon Cinema in Glasgow. The ten-day tour included 18 shows across nine venues in England, Scotland, and Wales, featuring a setlist of 11 songs. The tour coincided with the release of their album Rubber Soul and the double A-side single “Day Tripper”/”We Can Work It Out”.

On the other side of the Earth from Glasgow, The Rolling Stones would take the stage a little less than ten hours after my birth (account for the time zone difference) for the first of two shows that evening at the Sacramenta Memorial Auditorium in California. The concert was preceded by a Homecoming Queen contest and brief sets by Patti Labelle and the Blue Belles, and Vibrations. During their performance of “The Last Time,” in front of 5,000 fans, Keith Richards shocked himself when his guitar touched a microphone stand, and a flame erupted. Reports from the time said the blast sounded like a gunshot. Jeff Hughson, the promoter, thought the guitarist had been shot as he lay unconscious. Richards, burned from the electrical surge, was escorted from the venue with oxygen tubes and taken to the hospital. The rubber soles of Richards’ suede shoes may have saved his life. Perhaps the universe has a sense of humor because The Beatles happened to release Rubber Soul on the same day—December 3, 1965. Nonetheless, Richards was back playing the following night.

Also on this date, The Who released their debut album My Generation in the UK, followed by an American release the following year. The album contains the title track, which is considered to be the band’s signature song.

Princess Cruises, an ocean liner service which would be made famous by the 1980s television series The Love Boat, began services with the departure of a chartered ship, the Canadian Pacific Lines steamer Princess Patricia, from Los Angeles on the first of ten 14-day cruises along Mexico’s west coast, with stops at La Paz, Puerto Vallarta, Acapulco and Mazatlán. Seattle businessman Stanley McDonald inaugurated the Princess line after a six-month practice run in 1962, with the steamer Yarmouth, coinciding with the operation of the Seattle World’s Fair, which had been in progress. On December 15, 1967, McDonald would double his fleet with the departure of a second ship, which he would rename from Italia to Princess Italia.

The Soviet space probe Luna 8 was launched in on December 3, 1965, with the objective of achieving a soft landing on the Moon; however, its retrorocket firing occurred too late, and suffered a hard impact on the lunar surface on the Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms). The mission did complete the experimental testing of its stellar-guidance system and the ground-control of its radio telemetry equipment, its flight trajectory, and its other instrumentation.

And the German figure skater who won the Olympic gold ladies singles in 1984, and 1988 Katarina Witt, shares a birthday with me having been born in Staaken, East Germany on this date. I can recall watching one of her routines during the Games in Sarajevo.

I think it’s time to get to some covers. For years, the only cancellations I ever saw that were dated December 3, 1965, were first day covers of a stamp issued by Austria on that date commemorating their national Stamp Day. The single black blue green stamp — listed as Scott number B321 — is a semi-postal with a face value of 3 öS (Austrian schillings) and a surcharge of 0.70. It was designed by Adalbert Pilch with an image of a postman delivering letters and engraved by Rudolf Toth. It measures 39x30mm and has comb perforations of 13¾x14½. There were 2,188,000 copies printed.

I have collected a number of covers bearing this stamp; most have different types of cancellations and cachets. Just a few of them are displayed in this blog entry.

It was only in the past month or so that I found a few covers (and one meter strip) bearing December 3, 1965, cancellations. Please note that none of those pictured below are in my collection; the images are from the collectibles auction site Delcampe.

Despite Kuwait Airways being first to order the Trident 1E it was their neighboring country Iraq’s national airline, Iraqi Airways, which was the first to put it into service, on October 1, 1965. They also received three aircraft and due to the secretive and repressive regime of the Ba’ath party they seem to have led quite leisurely lives. Their final fates seem shrouded in mystery but their hulks may have made it into the early 90s. A set of three airmail stamps marking the introduction of jet aircraft into Iraq was issued on December 3, 1965 (Scott #C12-C14). These feature the Trident 1E and were printed by Courvoisier (Helio Courvoisier) S. A. in Switzerland by photogravure. They measure 48x29mm each, have comb perforations of 11¾ on coated granite paper, and are denominated 5 ف.ع (Iraqi fils), 10 ف.ع, and 40 ف.ع. The two lowest values had a press run of 1,000,000 each while the high value was printed in a quantity of 500,000.

This cover was mailed from the Stamp Office in the capital city of Luxembourg on December 3, 1965, sent by registered mail. It is franked with three stamps — a 1 fr. (Luxembourgish franc) dark blue and dark violet blue definitive issued on April 5, 1965, bearing a portrait of Grand Duke Jean of Luxemburg (Scott #420); and the two Europa stamps issued on September 27, 1965, in denominations of 3fr. and 6fr. (Scott #432-433).

What we have here is a gummed meter impression cancelled at Amiens, France, on December 3, 1965. Amiens is a city and commune in northern France, located 120 km (75 miles) north of Paris and 100 km (62 miles) south-west of Lille. Amiens Cathedral in the city is the largest Gothic cathedral in France. Amiens also has one of the largest university hospitals in France, with a capacity of 1,200 beds. The author Jules Verne lived in Amiens from 1871 until his death in 1905, and served on the city council for 15 years. Amiens is the birthplace of French president Emmanuel Macron.

This commercial cover was sent from the Shibata Sangyo Company — real estate agents and brokers to the Macrocoma Company in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania. It is cancelled December 3, 1965, at Yotsuya (四谷, 四ツ谷), an area in Shinjuku, Tokyo, that previously was a ward (四谷区 Yotsuya-ku) in the now-defunct Tokyo City. Before the growth of Edo, Yotsuya was a farming village outside the city. In 1634, with the digging of the outer moat around Edo Castle, many temples and shrines moved to Yotsuya. The moat had stone walls, and a mitsuke, or watch tower, was also built. Gradually the area became part of the city of Edo. In 1695, the shōgun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi ordered the establishment of a vast kennel. The purpose was to board stray dogs as part of his policy of showing mercy to animals. Yotsuya developed rapidly due to its central location. In 1894, the Kōbu Railway, predecessor of the present-day Chūō Line, enabled the easy transport of raw materials into the area; soon, pencil, tobacco and other industries moved in and began Yotsuya’s rapid industrial development. Today, many historic temples and graves are located in Yotsuya.