posted 04-28-2012 12:12 PM               

Space Cover #159: Space Cover Cachet Errors

While the many space cover servicers and cachet makers of days gone by routinely created accurate and factual cacheted covers, mistakes and errors did happen, and this week's Space Cover of the Week presentation will exhibit a few of the more obvious and interesting cachet errors.

But first, we want to say that the many space cover and cachet makers have done a splendid job and it is rare to find any error or mistake in a space cover cachet, however...

The top cover shown above is a handsome and well-designed Artcraft FDC for the Project Mercury stamp and shows John Glenn with a rocket. It shouldn't take much study for most any space fan to see what's wrong with this cachet.

The next cover is a Robert Rank/Space Voyage cover and is a rare example of his usual well-designed and factual covers. This amazing cover has at least five errors, including stating that Wernher von Braun is carrying a V-2 rocket. The next image shows the cachet in better detail.

Above is a Mercury/Redstone-3 launch cover with a cachet identifying Alan Shepard as the first man into space (we know that he wasn't).

The final cover has two errors and both were corrected by the person that the cover/cachet is for: Chuck Yeager. The Ray DeBeau cachet identifies Charles "Chuck" Yeager as "Buck," and also has the X-1 Program managed by NACA.

I'm sure that other collectors have covers also having errors.

posted 05-26-2012 09:08 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by micropooz:
Clyde Sarzin put out beautifully printed X-15 cachets postmarked on June 28, 1963 and Sept. 20, 1963 at Edwards.

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posted 05-28-2012 05:21 AM               

For the von Braun cover, I found the following, just shooting out of the hip and with no research done:

• von Braun did not head NASA ever, just the Marshall Space Flight Center
  
• von Braun did not surrender any V-2s. Just himself and a few members of his teams.
  
• Obviously von Braun and Nebel did not carry V-2s on their shoulders. Much to big for that.
  
• Of course, this carrying rockets action based on a famous photo did not happen at Peenemünde, but at the rocket launch site at Berlin Tegel. Also, Nebel never worked at Peenemünde, he was sidelined much earlier.
  
• The 1st launch of a modified V-2 from Cape Canaveral did not take place in 1950, but earlier.
  
• White Sands, and thousands of V-2s?

posted 05-28-2012 05:11 PM               

And certainly 1,000's of V-2's launched at White Sands is incorrect, as less than 100 were launched in the US.

And to be very picky, we could also say that it's not standard to use "5" instead of a "V" in naming the Saturn V.

posted 05-28-2012 07:30 PM               

So I don't fault Robert Rank for that cachet text, but of course, as Bob pointed out — It was a WAC Corporal atop a V-2, and was known as Bumper 8.

Bumper 7, fired from the Cape five days later, was the second launch of a rocket from the Cape's Florida Space Coast.

Both V-2s were primarily assembled from captured German parts, with about 20% of each vehicle consisting of U.S. components.

Besides Bumper 8 becoming the first rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, then called the Long Range Proving Ground, it wasn't the first rocket engine ignited on Cape soil!

It was actually Bumper 7, though, it didn't fly on its first attempt on July 19, 1950. The single V-2 rocket motor ignited but quickly shut down, apparently because moisture caused a fuse to blow in a fuel valve along with a failed related circuit.