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Remember, these things were not done officially and were done mainly by a stamp club in Houston for each Apollo crew and were handled by that stamp club ("Manned Spacecraft Center Stamp Club," as seen on some of the "secondary" insurance covers) and then the astronaut families kept the covers while the mission was underway. After they returned safely, the covers were stored away or dispersed in various ways and no "official" record was kept, especially by NASA, which, I guess, had really little or nothing to do with them. They may have given their official okay for the astronauts to create them, but they were just something that the astronaut crews did themselves with much help from the MSCSC. You are probably confused and wondering about the MSCSC "secondary" insurance covers. These are absolutely insurance covers, but not of the most popular and well known type. The Apollo 15 "secondary" insurance covers are certainly genuine, but because the cachets used on them were also available to collectors at that time, it's possible that some seen were canceled for the flight and then later signed by the crews - which, of course, would not make them insurance covers. That's the problem with the secondary insurance covers: the cachets and covers are exactly identical to those that were actually created and used as insurance covers, but also were made available to space collectors and could have been signed after the mission. But those Apollo 15's that come with a letter from Mrs. Irwin stating that they are insurance covers, ARE insurance covers and are certainly worth collecting. The main insurance covers are unique, in that their cachet design (a crew patch/mission emblem cachet with various insignia at the bottom, such as Astronaut Wings) was used ONLY for insurance covers for Apollos 12 through 16 and not made available to collectors - generally. But there were a number left over and many were stamped and canceled but not signed. As time went by many of these were sold and dispersed and some were later signed by one or more of the astronauts. But these are NOT insurance covers, as they were not signed by the crew, preflight, and put up to be sold in case the crew was lost. These left over covers are generally referred to as "insurance-type" covers and pop up from time to time. I have obtained a few in the last two to three years and have had some of these canceled/unsigned insurance-type covers signed by various astronauts. Numbers? Who knows? Probably at least 500+ for each mission would be in the ballpark. Ken could tell you better than I. But some flights had fewer done, with probably Apollo 13 and 16 the smallest number and Apollo 12 and 15 the most. Probably Apollo 12 and 15 are seen the most and Apollo 11's and 13 the most expensive. Apollo 11's are expensive because of it being Apollo 11, but probably a fair number of Apollo 11s exist - I'm thinking that around 300+ were done for each family, but probably only a few hundred have been released. Hope all this gives you a good background on Apollo insurance covers and I'd be glad to answer any other questions you may have. I am not an authority on insurance covers and what knowledge I have I mostly got from Ken Havekotte.
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