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  Space Cover 527: Apollo 10 Special Handling

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Author Topic:   Space Cover 527: Apollo 10 Special Handling
yeknom-ecaps
Member

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

posted 08-11-2019 09:54 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 527, August 11, 2019

Space Cover 527: Apollo 10 USS Carpenter Special Handling

Shown is an Apollo 10 recovery ship cover from the USS Carpenter which was mailed by the ship's postal clerk to his relatives or friends.

Enclosed in the envelope was a mimeographed letter:

This envelope is postmarked the day of the Apollo 10 splash-down. The cachet stamp on the left side is the special cachet stamp used by all the ships in the recovery force, and the stamp is one purchased for our crew members, to make a better looking letter for mail sent off during the Apollo mission. I purchased 1,700 of these 6 cent stamps for the crew. They still will be sold at 6 cents a piece.

Many collectors have sent me envelopes already addressed with postage on them so that they could have one of these envelopes. There really a collectors item I guess. I'm writing this about 2 weeks before the mission so I can have all my letters, etc. ready but it is expected that I will have to hand stamp approximately 3 to 4 thousand envelopes the day of the splash-down.

I thought that maybe you, as one of my closest relatives or friends, would enjoy having one of these collector items.

Hopefully I'll see you sometime in June. I'm still not sure when I'll get leave' I'll look you up when I do get home – that's a promise.

Love,
Gene

Special handling by Gene the postal clerk included, on the front of the envelope adding the ship's recovery force position and time of the recovery above the Navy RSC and adding the USS Carpenter corner card below the Navy RSC.

Ken Havekotte
Member

Posts: 2913
From: Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard
Registered: Mar 2001

posted 08-15-2019 07:46 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Ken Havekotte   Click Here to Email Ken Havekotte     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Even though, Tom, I am not an avid or serious recovery ship cover collector as many others are on this forum, I do like this particular Apollo 10 secondary recovery ship cover a lot.

It's nice to see an interested aboard ship postal clerk (Gene) quite interested in the Apollo 10 return voyage from the moon. I do like his personal account and notation at top along with the adding of an additional rubber stamp at the bottom.

It was also interesting to note his remark about having to perhaps cancel between 3-4K recovery envelopes on splashdown day.

It's just a different and cool recovery ship cover from a Navy postal clerk "insider."

All times are CT (US)

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