Romania 1965
Ranger 7 and Ranger 9
A set of six stamps on space exploration from Romania included this depiction of Ranger 7, the first successful US Moon probe. After a series of failures, Rangers 7, 8, and 9 returned a rapid sequence of pictures to Earth as they flew towards the Moon, being destroyed on impact. Ranger 7 hit the Moon on 1964 July 31 in northern Mare Nubium; the area was later named Mare Cognitum.
In the rest of the set, two stamps showed the US communications satellite Syncom 3, one was of the Ranger 7 rocket, and two showed the Soviet Voskhod 1 spacecraft and its three-man crew.
Stanley Gibbons catalogue number:
3240
Romania reissued the Ranger 7 stamp later in 1965 with an overprint to commemorate the last of the Ranger series, Ranger 9, which hit the Moon on 1965 March 24 inside the crater Alphonsus. The face value was increased from 1 to 5 Lei and hence it is a more expensive stamp to buy. This overprinted version has a separate Stanley Gibbons catalogue number.
Stanley Gibbons catalogue number:
3263