Olympic champion shoots Swiss first-day cover

Philatelic Foreword by Jay Bigalke

Switzerland issued a new stamp May 1 for the 200th anniversary of the Swiss Shooting Sport Federation. The stamp was printed using gold ink, and it includes small perforated bullet holes throughout the design, which features a target.

According to Swiss Post (Switzerland’s postal service), the Swiss Shooting Sport Federation has almost 130,000 members and is the country’s fifth largest sporting federation.

Then Swiss Post took it one step further for a commemorative collectible. It had Olympic shooting champion Nina Christen use the stamp as a target on a collectible card. Christen won gold and bronze medals for Switzerland at the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021.

After the stamp was issued, Christen shot through 200 examples of the new commemorative affixed to cards. She also autographed each of the 200 numbered cards created.

Those limited number of cards were placed on sale May 2 and quickly sold out.

Details about the stamp and, even more impressively, a video of her shooting a bullet through a target on the stamp are available online.

I did a quick search online to see if any of these cards were for sale in the aftermarket but was unable to locate one. It is quite possible they sold out due to interest from sports memorabilia collectors as well as stamp collectors, but I applaud Swiss Post for thinking outside of the box.

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