Space Cover #461: Anniversary Covers With A TwistWith the 50th anniversary of Apollo 8 coming up this year and Apollo 11 next year, I wanted to highlight a project I did for the 50th anniversaries of the Project Mercury manned launches as my first Space Cover of the Week.
Many of us space cover collectors have anniversary covers in our collections. These tend to be done for round number anniversaries such as the 10th or 25th.
In 2011, with the 50th anniversary of Alan Shepard's flight approaching, the USPS announced that a stamp commemorating the event would be released on May 4. NASA had also announced that they would hold a ceremony at Launch Complex-5 where the launch took place from on the actual anniversary date of May 5. Being a volunteer at the US Air Force Space & Missile Museum I have a badge that grants me access to the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and the launch pads.
I purchased a few sheets of the Mercury stamps and prepared a number of covers that I would take to the ceremony and then to the Cape Canaveral post office to have the cancels applied. The ceremony was very moving with a number of guest speakers including Bob Cabana (Dir. KSC) and Susan Helms (CDR. 45th Space Wing). The ceremony ended with a video of Shepard's flight starting at the actual launch time of 9:34 AM and proceeding for the next 15 minutes.
As the crowd was breaking up and I was preparing to leave, I got the idea to place my small box of covers on the launch pad itself at the base of the Redstone rocket. It was a small gesture on my part but an idea was born in my head. I then decided to do the same thing for the remaining five Project Mercury 50th anniversaries.
I went to the Cape Canaveral post office to have the covers cancelled and they were very accommodating. In going through the covers when I got home I also got the idea to do a couple of covers that would have the cancels for all six anniversaries. These covers would consequentially be placed on the respective launch pad for all six Mercury anniversaries. I did not have room for all six on the front so I added two on the back along with the statement that the cover was placed on the launch pads.
The question here would by why do this? First and foremost is because it is really neat! Many of us have or desire "flown" or "carried" covers. Flown covers and items are very collectible and can be worth quite a bit of money. While my Project Mercury covers that were placed on the launch pad surface on the 50th anniversary of the launch certainly aren't worth anything, they sure are an interesting conversation piece... and really neat!
posted 04-01-2018 05:37 AM
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