posted 01-10-2019 06:33 PM               

I'll start it off with several of my own selections in the first panel seen below. This assortment of mostly space covers are crew signed by first lunar surface explorers Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and moon orbiter Michael Collins. I've also added a few other selections signed by the backup crew along with some individual covers, postcards, and other items signed by separate crewmen. I've already traded off and sold about a dozen more of previously owned Apollo 11 crew signed covers and postcards from recent years, but I did keep copies of those for my collecting records.

The second panel of displayed covers contains autographs of mostly key Apollo 11 officials. Included are US Presidents Johnson and Nixon, long-time rocket pioneers, and Space Age personalities and leaders of our nation's goal in putting men on the moon for the first time in human history. I've tried to represent different cachet varieties, cover types, along with a wide assortment of autograph selections, at least, just for now.

Some of the names (autographs) represented in this brief selection for now (more may come later) are: moon rocket developer Wernher von Braun, Tom Paine, Robert Gilruth, George Low, Kurt Debus, the mission flight directors, John Houbolt, the wives of the astronaut crew, the lead spacesuit technicians, big space Congressional leader Olin Teague, key Apollo 11 launch team members, the parents of "The First Man," and one of my favorite autograph inscriptions — of which there are many — from German/U.S. rocket pioneer veteran Dieter Grau of the original V-2 and Saturn V rocket development team. His last sentence on the backside of the depicted Apollo 11 launch day orange-colored lunar landscape designed cover reads, "This launch of Apollo 11 observed from the colorful grandstand (VIP) among enthusiastic representatives from all over the world."

Two other depicted signed Apollo 11 covers, also by long-time rocketry specialists, are Konrad Dannenberg with, "Today mankind lefts its cradle to search for the stars!" and Helmut Zoike, a rocket pioneer since 1930 in Berlin, wrote, "Apollo 11 was the fulfillment of my life's dream and the culmination of my work in the missiles and space programs."

Well, there we have it — a good start, I hope, as we celebrate and commemorate mankind's 50th anniversary of humans leaving our own planet in search of another — the moon — in fulfilling a dream that many had thought would be impossible more than 50 years ago.

posted 01-12-2019 06:51 PM               

The signer of the lunar cratered landscape cover is German/U.S. space-engineer pioneer Dieter Grau of Huntsville, AL. He first joined the Dornberger/von Braun rocket development team at Germany's Peenemuende in 1943 and retired from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in 1973. Throughout his 30-year rocketry career, Grau designed electrical systems for the team's early rockets and manned spaceflight programs, eventually heading up NASA's quality and reliability assurance at Marshall. His quality standards for the aerospace industry were established under his guidance throughout all of the NASA organization nationwide.

One of his close work colleagues described Grau as the guy who had to verify the Saturn launch vehicle was safe for our astronauts to ride on. He touched 32 Saturn rockets that were all successful, that never failed, never carried a weapon, transported our first men to the moon and back, and orbited America's first space station with three astronaut crew visits. He had lived to be 101 years of age.

In referring to the Apollo 11 emblem covers, these were the exact same cachet-type covers that the flight crew themselves flew with them on their epic lunar voyage and kept others behind as their personal crew insurance covers.

The colorful mission patch-type covers were first available at the NASA Exchange souvenir-gift shops in June 1969 and on launch day at the main VIP viewing site areas on the Kennedy Space Center grounds itself.

posted 01-16-2019 11:54 AM            

There is also a pair of Fleetwood FDCs for the Paul Calle moon landing stamp which was released in September. One was mass produced with the "one small step for man" statement. The other with the corrected "small step for a man" quote was reprinted in a much smaller quantity.

posted 01-17-2019 11:56 AM               

Flown Apollo 11 covers are the rarest, and amounted to about 211. The most common are the ones adorned with Manned Spacecraft Center Stamp Club color cachets of two astronauts working on the lunar surface. These can be seen in Ken's collection, and are most probably insurance covers signed by the crew and left behind to be sold as extra income by the families in case anything happened to the astronauts.

posted 01-17-2019 12:55 PM               

Included in the collages, as pointed out, are crew signed insurance covers of all three types. I'll try to have a few others depicted later, though, as I am trying not to show those with similar or same-type cachet productions.

As a small tidbit, I've always wondered why the colorful MSCSC-issued covers for the first lunar landing didn't print their mission emblem at top left in color! It was done in black-n'-white, however, the rest of the cachet is so colorful, so why not do the whole cachet design in color?

You almost don't even notice the patch design at top left since there is so much color in the full cachet area, that it tends to overshadow the b/w emblem.

posted 02-19-2019 06:48 AM               

She was one of only about a dozen full-time support workers that had daily and complete access to KSC's astronaut crew quarters all throughout the Apollo-era.

The signatures referred to were definitely acquired by the crew themselves in their own quarters. They were also a part of the same crew signed "insurance" cover batches used by the crewmen for their families to be kept throughout the flight and afterwards.

It would appear that Dora had been gifted a few of the signed covers before launch, but for some reason, never had them postmarked.

For those that had been signed by the crew on the reverse side of the envelope(s), I really don't know why this had been done.

There were a handful (less than half a dozen or so) of the "reverse signed" MSCSC covers that Dora had acquired. Maybe she had plans to write mailing addresses on their front cover surfaces so that the crew autographs would not interfere in the address area, and for some unknown reason, never had them addressed nor mailed out.

posted 07-22-2019 08:00 AM               

Before postmarking htis cover, Neil Armstrong made 3 trial cancellations on a flight plan. Each Apollo 11 astronaut got one. Last year Neil's one was auctioneered. In my opinion it is the Blue Mauritius of Astrophilately.