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Author
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Topic: A (re)introduction to space covers
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albatron@aol.com
New Member Posts:
From:
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posted 06-28-2001 08:30 PM
   
A HUGE tip of the mad props beanie to Bob McLeod for his awesome article here in collctSpace about space covers. Bob - your experience over the years has shown to be amongst the most valuable in the hobby, and second only to Ken Havekotte, but certainly a very close race....<G> Thank you for the (re)introduction. I'm sure MANY here will get some very useful knowledge from it. Thanks for taking the time to prepare this and sharing it. I remember when we discussed this earlier, I didn't think you would have it done this quickly. But hey, retirement is a good thing is it not? <G> Cheers! Al |
sixturners@voyager.net
unregistered
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posted 06-30-2001 08:44 AM
I would like to second Al's comments. I really enjoyed Bob's article. I have wanted to learn more about covers and was always confused by all the different types. I am a new collector to covers and am working with early Shuttle Missinons only as this is not the cheapest hobby.Thanks to another good teacher...Bob. Rick |
Ken Havekotte
Member Posts: 2912
From: Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard
Registered: Mar 2001
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posted 07-03-2001 02:15 PM
My compliments to my good friend Bob McLeod for his well-done article about collecting space covers, a passion we both have shared since the Apollo flights to the moon. Space philately has been, and always will, be one of my first space collecting loves. I can still recall the very first space cover held in my hands (and it was mine to keep!)--a crew-emblem cachet cover for Apollo 10's launch on May 18, 1969--mailed to me when I was a 12-year-old youngster from a secretary friend at KSC's Flight Crew Training Building. Her parents lived next door to my family 32 years ago when my dad had just retired from a long Air Force career as we settled into our first home on Merritt Island, right in the heart of Florida's Space Coast, in Sept. 1968. Of the little spending money I had in 1968-69, often I would visit closeby drug stores and purchase picture postcards depicting rockets, launch pads, satellites and our nation's early astronauts. There was even a local "semi-space" store that I would ride on my bicycle to that would on occasion offer "space covers," usually within a price range between $3 and $6, -- but still, at that time, -- too expensive for a young boy with only a weekly allowance and sometimes additional monies from odd-ball jobs. That "semi-space" store owner, now a former
cachet cover producer, is still in the business and we often work together as close friends and associates on many space-related projects. He continues to buy my company's space cover productions and has been for more than 15 years! Bob McLeod in his current CollectSpace.com "A (Re)Introduction to Space Covers" column has captured the enjoyment, excitement and pure fun of what space cover collecting is all about. It's truly a wonderful hobby full of rewarding benefits, self-educating, and can be a challenging endeavor that opens a wide range of space collecting possibilities. One of the most important aspects of owning a space cover is that it's one of the few space collectibles that you can't remake or reproduce ever again! Let me explain further: Most all commercial space items today can, if needed, be reproduced or made-over for aerospace enthusiasts and collectors to buy. In many cases commemorative cloth patches, space insignia pins, decal stickers and most commercial space merchandise are issued and produced on a continued basis as needed. But once a space cover is postmarked at a certain place with a specific date (i.e. for a recent Space Shuttle launch at Kennedy) you can no longer acquire that particular launch-dated cover as government postal regulations prohibit all covers, not just space, from being backstamped or "backdated." Sure, if you want, space philatelists can use similar cachet space envelopes to acquire anniversary cancels (with same day and month as an original space-occurrence event), but never the same year! Take one of the rarest U.S. space covers in astrophilately history...the splashdown-recovery of Alan Shepard's Freedom 7 Mercury spacecraft in the Atlantic on May 5, 1961. Only a handful of envelope covers were prepared for America's first return from space. The place: Onboard the aircraft carrier Lake Champlain at sea -- usually with an appropriate cachet applied by the U.S. Navy (this tradition of cachets provided by the Navy first got started in 1963) -- and postmarked aboard the ship's own post office in commemoration of Shepard's historic space feat. This one-of-a-kind, certainly limited, "classic" space cover can NEVER be repeated or postmarked again--ever! The on-board cover forever documents Shepard's return voyage from suborbital flight. To go a step further - or "expanding the envelope" if you please - imagine if the same ship mail cover was autographed by Shepard and perhaps inscribed, "MR-3 Pilot/Freedom 7/America's First Man in Space" with the date added. Go even further -- have the Marine helicopter pilots (Wayne Koons and George Cox of Marine Air Force Group 26) that picked up Shepard from the ocean possibly inscribe their autographs in a special way...and let your imagination go even further! Can you imagine a space cover prepared, in a special way, to commemorate Apollo 11's launch to the moon in 1969? What if a collector with a lot of creativity and contact(s) managed to smuggle an Apollo 11 emblem cachet cover aboard the astronaut transfer van that was "carried on" by the van driver! Just think -- having the cover inside the van from crew quarters to launch pad 39A on that historic "Go for the moon" 9-mile trek with Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins aboard would certainly be special. But what if the exact cover had been autographed by the crewmen enroute to the pad along with the van driver's certification, and finally, postmarked July 16, 1969, from NASA's Kennedy Space Center! The opportunities for creating space covers are endless. Bob did a great job in communicating what some of those collecting passions and challenges can lead to. Let's keep on collecting space covers in our continued "documentation" of man's final frontier -- space exploration! |
Cindys_1
Member Posts: 192
From: Titusville, FL 32796
Registered: May 2001
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posted 07-03-2001 07:05 PM
>>Let's keep on collecting space covers in our continued "documentation" of man's final frontier -- space exploration!<<That was quite well said!
Cover are the least costly things to start a collection with, but hold just as much importance as an autograph.
My opinion only.... 
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Cindy |
Bob M
Member Posts: 1744
From: Atlanta-area, GA USA
Registered: Aug 2000
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posted 07-06-2001 12:09 PM
Ken, Great comments about space cover collect-
ing - YOU do the next article! Your
experience & knowledge relating to both space history & space collectables is unmatched. Good point about what is significant about
space covers, & that is that they can be created at one time & location only. The
cancelation assures that the cover was at
the site, or near it, when the event took place. Other collectables often weren't even
in existance when the space event took place
& can be produced in unlimited numbers long
after the event, such as, photos, patches, etc. A photo records the image of an historical
event; a canceled cover was there when it happened. Bob McLeod | |
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