Oman in Outer Space

1971: Apollo 14

It is lift off for the moon and the Apollo 14 crew (Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa and Edgar Mitchell).  Shepard and Mitchell are shown on the moon's surface on the commemorative sheet unfortunately not with Shepard famously playing a couple of golf shots.  Stuart Roosa was the Command Module Pilot and the photographs he took while Shepard and Mitchell were on the surface would help with later moon landings.

This is a rather spaced out sheet for although the Sultanate of Oman exists, the State of Oman didn't.  These were issued by a government in exile when Sultan Said bin Taimur defeated the followers of Iman Ghalib bin al-Hinai in 1957-9, years later in 1970 the reclusive Sultan Said bin Taimur was overthrown by his son in a civil war but troops loyal to the former sultan kept on fighting until around 1976 and the stamps of the exiled government kept coming.  The presses must have been running hot in 1971 (the year of the sheet I show) as they issued a huge number of stamps on every subject one could imagine.  But let someone who knows what he is talking about take up the story -

"The stamps were the brainchild of Youssef Salim Tadros, once (in 1963) postmaster in Sharjah and later a partner in Middle East Stamps, Beirut. He got himself appointed as postal adviser to the exiled government. The latter obtained some status with the Arab Postal Union in 1966 and Tadros started issuing stamps in 1967. Since the rebels had long left Oman and did not have any postal services there, the letters with the stamps were dispatched from Baghdad (January 1968 only), then from Amman (until 1971) and later from Damascus (until June 1972). This means that the issues from 1967 to 1972 had postal validity in the above mentioned places. When the stamps could no longer be used postally after June 1972, Tadros ceased to issue State of Oman stamps.

One of Tadros' partners, the late Clive Feigenbaum in London, continued to print new stamps for State of Oman (and also for Dhufar, a province of today's Sultanate of Oman) until 1986. These "Feigenbaum issues", of course, did not see any postal use. They were done in sheetlets of 8 different se-tenant stamps, same as Feigenbaum did for Staffa, Nagaland, Eynhallow, ISO, etc" (Source - Stamporama Discussion)

Another imaginary world but a 'real' stamp - The Voyage of Sinbad

Sunday Stamps II prompt this week is the Letter O - for Oman and Outer Space - See It On A Postcard