posted 05-15-2012 08:17 AM               

I believe this is an insurance cover. But the date of the postmark is not the launch date, but the date of the lunar landing. Does that make a difference?

What would the value of this be since it's only signed by Roosa as opposed to the whole crew?

posted 05-15-2012 08:48 AM               

To the best of my knowledge, all of the Apollo 14 insurance covers were signed by the whole crew. Also, you probably need some kind of documentation even if you have a Bishop cover signed by the whole crew and cancelled on the launch date since it is possible for similar covers to have been signed post-flight.

posted 05-15-2012 09:45 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by capoetc:
To the best of my knowledge, all of the Apollo 14 insurance covers were signed by the whole crew

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The unsigned insurance covers are much rarer than the signed ones!

posted 05-15-2012 09:47 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by capoetc:
So, unless you have some other information about this particular cover, from appearance alone it is not an insurance cover.

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However, what leads me to believe that this is an insurance cover is, in doing some research, I found that only the covers with the wings under the emblem were reserved for the crew to be used as an insurance cover.

posted 05-16-2012 08:17 AM               

For years, our hobby has been too liberal and loose in identifying insurance covers. Ideally, for a cover to be considered an insurance cover, it should have some connection with a crew member or a family member. A notation on the back of the cover or a LOA would be ideal. Pete Conrad and lately, Al Worden, for two, have added documenting information on the back of their insurance covers.

Unfortunately, surely the large majority of insurance covers have no such notation or sny provable connection with any astronaut or family member. Probably the majority were distributed years ago without any notation or evidence that they were kept as insurance covers by the families.

Unsigned or single signed covers would not qualify as actual Apollo insurance covers in several ways. And referring to an unsigned or single signed cover as an insurance cover would not be correct and perhaps the often-used "insurance-type" cover would be proper in many cases.

Covers primarily created for use as insurance covers by the astronauts were also greatly distributed to dealers and collectors and surely many were signed post-flight and appear similar or identical to actual insurance covers.