When David Bowie passed away early last year at the age of 69 it impacted many of his millions and millions of fans in a very profound way. Tributes were in no short supply, and the late musician has been honored and memorialized at length. The UK’s Royal Mail issued tasteful commemorative stamp sets depicting some of Bowie’s most iconic album covers, but that wasn’t quite enough to satisfy the company’s Bowie fever, so a few days ago it launched hundreds of those collectible stamps into space. As planned, the balloon eventually went boom, sending the stamps tumbling towards Earth, and now you can win a set of them for yourself.
The stamps, 52 individual sets of which were chosen to honor Bowie’s 52 years as a musician, traveled over 100,000 feet into the atmosphere before the balloon carrying them finally went bust. The stamps then fell to Earth, which itself was a reference to the 1976 sci-fi film The Man Who Fell to Earth, in which Bowie starred. During their descent, the stamps reached speeds in excess of 500 miles per hour, and their progress was captures via an onboard camera. That video is now available to watch online.
It’s safe to say these stamps have had an incredibly wild journey, and as far as David Bowie collectibles go, they’re definitely unique items. If you want to get your hands on a set of these little paper space cadets you can enter for your chance to win one of the 52 sets by guessing the exact location at which they landed. The winners will be announced by Royal Mail after the contest closes on March 26th.
