OBSERVATION ISLAND AGM 23

Ship Name and Designation History

This section lists the names and designations that the ship had during its lifetime. The list is in chronological order.

Observation Island Class Range Instrumentation Ship Keel Laid September 15 1952 as EMPIRE STATE MARINER Launched August 15 1953 - Delivered February 24 1954 Laid up in National Defense Reserve Fleet Acquired by U.S. Navy September 10 1956 USS OBSERVATION ISLAND EAG-154 Commissioned December 5 1958 USS OBSERVATION ISLAND AG-154 Redesignated Miscellaneous Auxiliary (AG) April 1 1968 Decommissioned September 29 1972 Struck from Naval Register January 1 1973 Assigned to Maritime Administration Laid up in National Defense Reserve Fleet Reacquired by U.S. Navy 1977 USNS OBSERVATION ISLAND T-AGM-23 Placed In Service as Missile Range Instrumentation Ship (AGM) Currently assigned to Special Mission Ships Program (PM2), MSC Pacific

Naval Covers

This section lists active links to the pages displaying covers associated with the ship. There should be a separate set of pages for each name of the ship (for example, Bushnell AG-32 / Sumner AGS-5 are different names for the same ship so there should be one set of pages for Bushnell and one set for Sumner). Covers should be presented in chronological order (or as best as can be determined).

Since a ship may have many covers, they may be split among many pages so it doesn't take forever for the pages to load. Each page link should be accompanied by a date range for covers on that page.

1. Observation Island Covers Page 1     (1960-71)

 

Postmarks

This section lists examples of the postmarks used by the ship. There should be a separate set of postmarks for each name and/or commissioning period. Within each set, the postmarks should be listed in order of their classification type. If more than one postmark has the same classification, then they should be further sorted by date of earliest known usage.

A postmark should not be included unless accompanied by a close-up image and/or an image of a cover showing that postmark. Date ranges MUST be based ONLY ON COVERS IN THE MUSEUM and are expected to change as more covers are added.
 
>>> If you have a better example for any of the postmarks, please feel free to replace the existing example.

 

Postmark Type --- Killer Bar Text	Date From to Date To	Thumbnail Link To Postmark Image	Thumbnail Link To Cover Image

 

Locy Type 2(n+) (USS)

1967-02-04

As EAG-154

 

Locy Type 2t(n+u)

1960-03-29

As EAG-154
POLARIS Missile fired on this date.

 

Locy Type 2t(n+u)

1961-03-01

As EAG-154

 

Locy Type 2t(nu) (USS,AG)

1970-04-03

As AG-154
Welcome to Norfolk - USS Skill MSO-471, cachet by Tazewell G. Nicholson

 

Locy Type 9en+uy (SAN FRANCISCO, CA)

1971-10-27

As AG-154

 

Locy Type P [2(n+),"E" removed]

1969-10-24

As AG-154

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USPS Slogan Machine Cancel San Diego CA

1992-01-17

No Image

As T-AGM-23
Ship's cachet

 

Other Information

NAMESAKE - An island in the southern section of Lake Okeechobee, Florida.

 

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If you have images or information to add to this page, then either contact the Curator or edit this page yourself and add it. See Editing Ship Pages for detailed information on editing this page.

 

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