posted 01-16-2020 04:05 PM               

Space Cover #547: Unusual Carl Swanson Rubber Stamp Cachet

This week's Space Cover of the Week features a very unusual rubber stamp cachet produced by famed cachet artist Carl Swanson.

Carl Swanson was the artist who produced the cachets for Space Craft Covers and along with owner and business partner Joe Fitzpatrick, they produced hundreds of Space Craft Covers throughout the 1960's. After Joe Fitzpatrick passed away in early 1970, Carl kept producing Space Craft Covers for the Apollo lunar flights and a few miscellaneous events in the 1970's. In addition to the beautiful printed and mission-specific cachets for Space Craft Covers Carl Swanson also produced a number of generic rubber stamp cachets to be used by various cover servicers to commemorate launches and space events.

Pictured here are some examples of maybe the most unusual of these rubber stamp cachets. These examples show the same cachet used over a period of at least 6 years. With the cachet referring specifically to Spy Satellites and the description of the mission on the bottom of the cachet these must have had limited use. The only difference in the cachets other than the color is the addition of the title "Spook Bird" added to one of them.

What makes this cachet maybe the most unusual of all the Swanson produced cachets is that though a few of the cachets have the "Swanson" added somewhere in the cachet, this Spy Satellite cachet seems to be the only rubber stamp cachet to have the Space Craft logo included.

Does anyone know more to the story behind this cachet?

posted 01-17-2020 03:05 PM               

You said it was used over a period of at least 6 years. Do you have a list of dates/events where it was used?

posted 01-17-2020 03:50 PM               

I can't add anything further concerning the background of this particular cachet application, however, most of mine came from space cover collector Lloyd Bostwick, a long time secretary-treasurer of the Kennedy Space Center Philatelic Society (KSCPS) during the club's early years. Lloyd had passed away in 2002 when I was able to acquire his vast space cover collection.

It's always been my impression that perhaps Carl wanted to easily use an all-purpose RSC-type for the nation's increased activity of spy satellite shots here from the Cape. The U.S. Air Force maintained a lot of secrecy regarding our first "spy-in-the-sky" missions with hardly no or very little program information and satellite drawings (for possible cachet cover designs) becoming available to the public throughout the 1960/70/80's.

The first experimental "Spook Bird" satellites, built by TRW for the Air Force in 1967-68, were to monitor the radio communications of mostly high-command posts and their staffs in the Soviet armed forces of their strategic rocket and powerful missiles during the Cold War years. Not only for the Soviets, but the secret earth-orbiting sats had been used in gathering intelligence data of China, North Vietnam, and possibly for other troubled spots of South East Asia.

posted 01-17-2020 03:53 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by yeknom-ecaps:
Do you have a list of dates/events where it was used?

---

You also made a mention that SCC had not been in existence when the rubber stamp cachet covers were produced. I don't think Carl himself serviced the spy satellite covers, but of course his "Spy Satellite" rubber stamps had to be provided by someone, maybe at the time by Carl himself on several blank envelopes for dealers and collectors alike. But with the death of SCC-founder and business manager J.R. Fitzpatrick, I think in 1970, didn't Carl Swanson still operate the company throughout the early 1970's? There was even a SCC-published space cover and stamp newsletter-type magazine throughout the 1960/70's from Huntington, West Virginia, where Carl was from.

posted 01-17-2020 04:32 PM               

SCC first "trial" covers were in late 1960 with the first "official" one in 1961. The final unmanned one was for (launch) SERT 2 on Feb 2, 1970 but also Explorer 1 Decay on Mar 31, 1970.

Manned was through Apollo 17.

Don't know who produced Bean Fort Worth Swanson cachet for Skylab 2 but it wasn't SCC.

Printed Swanson ASTP covers were actually produced by Johnson Space Center stamp club.

All but Eddie's first scan are after SCC stopped producing unmanned covers. The last one is from 1975 when SCC was completely out of business as it shut down after Apollo 17. So someone other than SCC was servicing the covers.

posted 01-17-2020 06:15 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ken Havekotte:
But with the death of SCC-founder and business manager J.R. Fitzpatrick, I think in 1970, didn't Carl Swanson still operate the company throughout the early 1970's?

---

posted 01-22-2020 04:06 PM               

1. 6-19-70 KSC-H Black RSC
   
2. 8-31-70 KSC-H Black RSC
   
3. 9-1-70 KSC-M Blue RSC
   
4. 11-6-70 KSC-M Black RSC
   
5. 5-5-71 KSC-M Black RSC (same day as MR-3's 10th anniversary)
   
6. 11-2-71 KSC-M Black RSC
   
7. 12-15-75 KSC-M Red RSC
   
8. 12-12-77 KSC-M Purple RSC
   
9. 4-7-78 KSC-M Purple RSC

posted 02-28-2020 09:02 PM               

Carl moved to Ft. Worth for a short while soon after Apollo 11. I live about 3 miles from the Ft. Worth border and contacted him. He invited me over and gave me a souvenir from Apollo 11, which is my only clue that this was post Apollo 11.

As it turned out, Carl was allergic to Pecan trees. I have three of those in my yard. They are everywhere around here. So his stay in Ft. Worth was very brief and he moved from here, to Florida.

posted 08-30-2023 09:55 AM               

I came across a couple of interesting rubber stamp cachet covers for the USNS Redstone at-sea tracking ship vessel. The covers depicted are posted from the Cape on the splashdown- recovery dates of SL-2 and SL-3 in 1973. I think the same-type rubber stamp cachet had been used on a few Apollo ship-related events as well, though, without checking first from my own covers.

Swanson's name can be seen, though very small, at the bottom right of the ship image. I don't know if the Swanson/Redstone covers were not mentioned beforehand here on cS, therefore, I thought it would fun to post them along with one of Carl's printed cachet covers honoring Skylab commander Alan Bean at Fort Worth, Texas, and note the postal cancel from his hometown there on the day of his Skylab II (SL-3) launch.