posted 07-01-2020 10:02 AM               

It is a monochrome light green cachet. Now, look at the following cover which I bought in a group of USS Goodrich covers on eBay. The green is actually somewhat darker than the scan shows. Before you read the text can you see the difference?

Apart from the green being significantly darker than any of my other USS Goodrich covers (this may just be a function of the amount of ink), notice that the cachet is bi-colour! The NASA symbol is black! I have never before seen a bi-colour Navy cachet from any ship for any mission before.

This leaves a number of questions. Who produced this cover? Why was it made? How was it made? And, were more than one cover produced or is my cover unique?

posted 07-03-2020 02:27 PM               

I think this is a "normal" USS Goodrich cover from the ship. It is definitely unusual in the color and the difference in color for the NASA emblem and very few others exist. I don't think this was made "on purpose" or intended to be a unique instance by the ship's postal clerk(s).

As you show in the "typical" USS Goodrich the green color is light and NASA emblem is only partially there.

USS Goodrich covers are also in black.

Since the NASA emblems are typically only partial impressions it may be an uneven rubber stamp was made.

My guess is that the rubber stamp had been used for black ink cachets and switched to green (which may be why there is a deeper green color) and the NASA emblem part of the rubber stamp only partially got the green ink — so when the rubber stamp was applied to the envelope it applied the left over black ink as the NASA emblem. Note that parts of the NASA emblem have a green color, parts look to be a mix, and other parts specifically are black.

Have seen variations in color various parts of the rubber stamp cachet on the Harry Gordon rubber stamps when covers for the same event switch between different color inks (red and blue for example).