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  Space Cover 304: MA-7 Captain's Covers

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Author Topic:   Space Cover 304: MA-7 Captain's Covers
yeknom-ecaps
Member

Posts: 660
From: Northville MI USA
Registered: Aug 2005

posted 02-14-2015 02:14 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for yeknom-ecaps   Click Here to Email yeknom-ecaps     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Space Cover of the Week, Week 304 (February 15, 2015)

Space Cover #304: Mercury-Atlas 7 Captain's Covers

Mercury-Atlas 7, launched May 24, 1962, was the fourth manned flight of Project Mercury. The Mercury spacecraft, named Aurora 7, made three Earth orbits, piloted by astronaut Scott Carpenter. He was the fourth American in space following Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom and John Glenn.

A targeting error during reentry took the spacecraft 250 miles (about 400 km) off-course, delaying recovery of Carpenter and the spacecraft. In this case, the secondary recovery ship the USS John R. Pierce became the prime recovery ship for the space capsule. A helicopter from the USS Intrepid recovered Carpenter.

The designated prime recovery ship was the USS Intrepid. The captain of the USS Intrepid, Captain J. Lloyd Abbot Jr., commissioned the printing of a special cachet for the mission which was printed on a large number of collector envelopes as shown at the top of this post.

On a significant number of these covers Captain Abbot added his rubber stamp corner card "J. L. ABBOT, JR. / Captain, U. S. Navy / Commanding Officer" with his signature J. L. Abbot Jr. above the corner card.

I originally thought these two versions were the only captain's covers for the mission but there is also a third variety. The third variety has the MA-7 captain's printed cachet added to the captain's official envelope with a printed corner card of "CAPTAIN J LLOYD ABBOT JR USN / COMMANDING OFFICER USS INTREPID / FLEET POST OFFICE NEW YORK" with his signature of J. Lloyd Abbot Jr. above the corner card. This variety is on a #7-3/4 size envelope (3 7/8" x 7 1/2").

Bob M
Member

Posts: 1744
From: Atlanta-area, GA USA
Registered: Aug 2000

posted 02-16-2015 09:06 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Bob M   Click Here to Email Bob M     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Very similar to Tom's MA-7 Captain's Cover at the top, this one has a few extras.

I bought this cover, signed by Carpenter, from pioneer space collector Dr. E. V. Smith in 1980 for $50, and as indicated by the rubber stamp address, it originally came from another pioneer collector, Donald Schultz.

Schultz is best known as the author of three classic space cover reference booklets, the first of which is entitled: "Project Mercury... One Step into Space."

My cover above is almost identical to the MA-7 Captain's Cover Schultz pictures in his Mercury booklet. I was fortunate to get this cover that connects to such a pioneer in our hobby - back when space covers were king.

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