posted 09-14-2003 08:57 AM               

My impression is that while the market demand for space memorabilia as a whole has increased, the interest in space covers has stayed about the same.

There is still demand for certain types of covers:

1) Flown Apollo mission covers e.g. Apollo 11, Apollo 15, have been going for thousands in recent auctions.

2) Autographed manned Mercury through Skylab covers, especially with complete crews, have been an area of continued interest (although photos have fetched more). Shuttle crew covers have been bringing significantly lower prices, with only a few exceptions (STS-1, 51-L, 107).

3) Covers with official KSC NASA cachets still go for premium prices, especially the rarer ones such as Gemini 5.

There are other areas of collecting covers in which interest, IMO, has decreased:

1) There appears to be much less demand for recovery covers, especially secondary ships. However, "Captain's Covers" are still sought after.

2) There is very little market for space shuttle covers because of the huge quantities available. Again, STS-1, 51-L, and 107 may be exceptions.

3) Prices for unmanned space covers have dropped, although there is still interest in some of the "premium" cachets such as Spacecraft or Goldey.

Overall, I think the numbers of space cover collectors has remained fairly level. I believe this area of collecting has a good future because the larger number of space memorabilia collectors will learn that covers are less expensive and a better historic record of the start of the space age.

posted 09-14-2003 09:25 AM               

The good news however, is that the supply of good space covers seems to have increased by leaps and bounds with the advent of eBay. Ten years ago the only way to get the upper end space covers were through Seymour Rodman or Superior Auctions. They pretty much controlled the market and they both ran the prices through the roof. I have seen, and bought at more reasonable prices, more top-notch covers off of eBay in the last 5 years than I had for the whole 15 years before that.

With the advent of Paul Bulver's "Suspect Space Covers", the (soon) publication of his Apollo catalog, and the (soon) publication of McMahan's updated catalog, I think the reference materials will be available in qualities unsurpassed.