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[b]Space Cover #132, Captain's Covers for the First Two Mercury Manned Orbital Flights[/b] Featured this week are two classic early US manned spaceflight covers that are from two of our hobby's pioneer collectors and prominent cover/cachet makers: Harry Gordon and Donald Schultz The top cover is a Prime Recovery Ship Captain's Cover for John Glenn's Mercury-Atlas 6 flight, with the standard USS Randolph's label cachet and authentically autographed by the ship's captain and Glenn. The USS Noa was the first on the scene and picked up both Glenn and the spacecraft. But then Glenn was flown by recovery helicopter to the Randolph, while the Noa delivered the Friendship 7 spacecraft to port. The second cover for Scott Carpenter's Mercury-Atlas 7 flight, is also a Prime Recovery Ship Captain's Cover and has the USS Intrepid's special recovery cachet and is autographed by Carpenter. These two ships, involved in the first two US manned Earth orbital missions, share a fairly unusual distinction. The Intrepid, like the Randolph, were not the first ships on the scene of the spacecraft splashdowns, but had the astronauts flown to them while other ships took care of recovering the spacecraft. The unusual result is that there were two ships involved in each of the two end-of-mission recoveries that can be called Prime Recovery Ships. The USS Randolph PRS cover was acquired in a 1986 Space Unit auction for the fairly high price (for back then) of $110, while the USS Intrepid PRS cover was acquired from early collector Dr. E.V. Smith in 1980 for $50.
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